


chestnut kisses

by Unloyal_Olio



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - No Hale Fire, Angst, Blow Jobs, Chestnuts, Frottage, Grief/Mourning, Hand Jobs, Kissing Games, Lacrosse Player Derek, M/M, Pre-Fire, Scarlet Pimpernel - Freeform, bad dancing, canon-level violence, kissing lesson, post-paige
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2014-09-05
Packaged: 2018-01-06 19:00:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 34,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1110404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unloyal_Olio/pseuds/Unloyal_Olio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A kissing game goes horribly wrong.</p><p>(Or a high school AU, in which Stiles's love saves Derek from the clutches of Kate Argent.)</p><p>Note: Chapter one is the experimentally formatted original. Chapter two is the edited version with conventional formatting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. (Story with Original "Experimental" Formatting)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ElleCC](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElleCC/gifts).



> 1\. I smooshed their ages for the story to work. Stiles/Cora/Scott/Lydia/Jackson are sophomores; Erica/Isaac are juniors; Derek/Boyd are seniors. 
> 
> 2\. There are two versions because when I first wrote this, I wanted to go deep into PoV, so I wrote in first person and modeled Derek's depressed, metaphorical inner monologue off David Levithan's in _Will Grayson, Will Grayson_ (which I LOVE), so there you go. no caplocks or paragraph dialogue. 
> 
> 3\. Because I got feedback from a lot of readers that they liked the story but didn't like the formatting, I am posting a second version with normal formatting (and a lot of edits) as chapter 2.

the forest is saran-wrapped with ice, the unbroken slopes blistering in glass creek beds. 

my basketball is the only spot of color. after i punched it, i hung it from an oak branch to stand as a reminder: control. since the harvest moon, when i lost it—when i went after peter and my mother had to cow me with her red eyes—i’m supposed to be “getting better.” whatever that means.

i have my crosse cocked to shoot when i catch the drift of the beat—old school rap. in the city, it'd be normal, but out here in my family's woods, I'm wondering what sort of red neck poacher listens to rap? but then the scent crests with the breeze, and i know: _stilinski_. not middle aged. not a poacher. _stilinski_. cora sent him. cora doesn't understand the concept of proportionate response.

my shot rattles and ricochets inside the jerry-built goal, satisfying for only a moment, because stilinski is drawing near, and the buzz from his headphones is clearer and clearer.

♪: _i asked her her name, she said blah-blah-blah._

stilinski slips on ice, two seconds from a concussion, yet his arm is corkscrewing as he raps along with biz markie.

♪: _she had 9/10 pants and a very big bra._

now stiles is doing things with his hands that would cause most women to aim for his groin.

♪: _i said, "yo, who was that?" "oh, he's just a friend."_

i look at the lacrosse ball in my palm and remind myself that violence is bad, and yet i can’t look away as stilinski’s hips jackhammer. it’s like bad break dancing. no, worse: _gangnam_ style.

♪: _oh, snap! guess what i saw? a fella tongue-kissin' my girl in the mouth._

stiles is headed up the hill. he still hasn't seen me. i could hide. i'm on the cusp of a decision when the beat for the next song begins. that’s . . . rihanna.

♪: _na na na na. come on._

that’s—"s&m."

i have to end this. as aimed, the ball hits the fir branch two feet over stiles’s head. yelping, he twists on a lone heel before capsizing into a snow bank. for a minute he lies there, a silent snow angel, but then, seething, he arises with a crystal pelt. his iphone continues to play.

_♪: sticks and stones may break my bones. but chains and whips excite me._

upon spying the offending lacrosse ball, his irritation amps into abominable snowman wrath. his eyes triangulate the ball’s path until they seize upon the hilltop, until they seize upon me. stiles plucks his headphones out his ears one at a time.

stiles: so, dumbass, _normal people_ say “hi.”

his cheeks and lips are holly red. slurry darkens the front fringe of his hair. his caramel eyes melt despite their fire. i hate that i can't remove the image of him dancing from my head.

me: normal people don't street dance in the middle of the forest.

stiles: i thought i was _alone,_ and who doesn’t dance when they’re alone?

laura would answer: _stoic, depressed white boys_. thank god she’s not here.

me: it’s not safe for you to be alone out here.

stiles: score. cora just won a buck off laura. she said you would say that.

me: go away.

stiles: nope. cora said i have to bring you back. boyd and isaac were looking for you.

his heart skips— _liar._

me: i’m busy practicing.

for the first time, stiles seems to take in the scene: basketball effigy, lacrosse equipment, the fallen branches and sticks that thatch the snow around me.

stiles: uh and why’d you murder that basketball and why are you holding a lacrosse stick? you’re not on the lacrosse team. you shoot hoops. you’re like harris’s golden thumb.

it’s none of his business. i think about telling him this, but i’m suddenly tired in a way that is not remotely physical. i grab my things and start down the hill, brushing past him.

stiles: hey, wait!

he scrambles to keep up.

.

.

it is cora’s annual christmas sleepover. it’s always weird. cora has the motliest crew of friends. it’s like someone shook names out of the high school cafeteria hat, and cora indiscriminately accepted the lot. there is lydia who is wearing a faux fur coat, leather pants and a santa hat. no, i don't understand. isaac and boyd are skulking in the corner, expressions slightly poisoned. allison argent is talking to erica about sightseeing in oregon. jackson whitmore (they're both wrestlers, but why, cora, why?) is talking shit to scott mccall about lacrosse. lastly, there’s cora who strides up to me holding a pan of . . . chestnuts.

me: no.

cora: it’s for the tree. you love the tree. you love chestnuts.

but i look at the chestnuts and i don't care, though she’s not wrong. i used to love them. i used to devour my own four gallon bucket, but not anymore. last year i imagined kissing paige underneath that tree.

me: i’m going up to my room.

laura: no, you’re not.

laura is wearing her intervention face. she’s also blocking my path up the stairs.

me: back off.

when her response is not to argue but to smile sympathetically, i know all is lost. my sister has drawn a line in the sand “for derek’s own good.”

laura: look, while mom and dad and aunt beatty are out of town, i’m in charge.

my parents are up north on “pack business.” i’ve heard them whispering about it. they’re worried about hunters, as if i couldn’t hear their bickering. i’m pretty sure they’re also visiting peter.

me: or not.

laura: derek, you’ve been avoiding everything, and you can’t avoid everything.

i arch a brow. i can damn well try.

laura: choose. it’s this or going with aunt beatty to santa town when she gets back on saturday.

family sucks. after flipping her off, i head over to where isaac and boyd are sitting.

.

.

it’s forty degrees outside so everyone is bundled in beanies and coats and thick stockings on the benches that surround the bonfire. beneath the giant tree, the air tastes of cinnamon cider and vodka and mint hot chocolate. cora’s cheeks are flushed with excitement as she explains our family tradition.

cora: so these are chestnuts, they pop open in threes from burs from our chestnut tree, which is one of the last of its kind. it used to be that american chestnut trees made up twenty percent of the trees in forests in north america, but then an asian chestnut fungus went on a rampage in the early twentieth century. the blight killed nearly all of them. ours is one of the final few tall ones left.

stiles: but to ward off the blight, the tree demands payment.

allison: in kisses!

(she is tipsy and scott is open-mouthed staring at her.)

what they’re saying is more or less true. technically, some free-loving, tree-hugging druid cast the spell on behalf of our family. my mom and dad typically use it as an excuse for shameless behavior. “collecting chestnuts” might as well be code in my house.

cora: so this is how the game works. everyone pokes a hole in a chestnut, and they go on one of the cast iron pans. whoever’s pops first is the kisser. second is the person kissed, and then everyone eats chestnuts!

scott: you’d kiss your brother?

cora throws a chestnut at him—which bounces off scott’s knee.

cora: on the _cheek_. jesus.

isaac: so if we don’t want to…

he is pointedly not looking at anyone.

cora: the kisser controls the kiss. it can be just a peck. um and nothing overly aggressive—and by that i mean tongue—unless invited.

lydia: i don’t know about the rest of you, but i think i’m hungry for chestnuts.

for some reason, she is smiling brightly—at _me_. stiles and jackson are frowning . . . when there is nothing to frown about.

cora: lydia, stop flirting. everyone ready?

we put our chestnuts on the pan. the heats envelopes them. inside the meat roasts. and the _smell_. chestnuts have one of those aromas that define other aromas, like coffee or bacon or roses. it’s lantern fire and christmas and thick blankets rolled into a rich kernel. the happy memories splice with the bitter and i can’t look anyone in the eye.

i shouldn’t be surprised when cora’s chestnut is the first to pop. erica’s is the second. then cora is making her way over to a blushing erica, and it finally dawns on me what is about to happen.

me: closing my eyes now.

for good measure, i shove my fingers in my ears, too. that is, until there’s a burst of laughter, and i briefly squint. cora has her tongue shoved down erica’s throat. at my side, boyd looks _way_ too into it so i elbow him. nevertheless, when it’s over, there’s no ignoring how erica now has leaves in her hair and dirt on her flannel cuffs. since i can’t bleach my brain, i focus on shelling my chestnut. you have to peel them while they’re hot. i just let my fingers burn and heal.

then it’s lydia’s pop. the second, though, is…

both stiles’s and _mine_ pop at once—and even with werewolf enhanced vision, there’s no telling which one cracked first.

scott: what’s the rule for that?

erica: kiss them both.

shrugging like it’s nothing, lydia bypasses stiles to sit on my knee. her fingers slide under my jaw. she leans in close.

lydia: let me play.

lydia is pretty. objectively most people would say she’s prettier than paige. nicer skin. brighter hair. probably even smarter, if rumors are to be believed. none of this matters, but on the other side of the table cora is looking at me with worry. she— _they_ —never believe me when i say i’m fine, so instead i think: _i’ll show them_. i look lydia in the eyes with challenge.

me: what’s the game?

lydia: this.

she is smiling through her teeth and i’m rolling my eyes even as her mouth rocks into mine. slippery gloss (vanilla bean, a tingle of mint) solicits my lips to open up. it’s just a kiss. it’s not the same. she doesn't taste the same. _cora, how could you think this would ever affect me?_ i let lydia in, and it’s not terrible. vodka and chocolate. it’s clear that she knows what she’s doing as her tongue touches mine with a quick curl—but come the fuck on, my sister is here. lydia’s ex-boyfriend is here. stiles and his unrequited puppy love is here.

after a sloppy minute, i shove lydia off, but she looks victorious as she corrects the gloss along her bottom lip. then it’s stiles’s turn and his face is white, lip quivering.

lydia pecks a kiss on his nose.

everyone knows that stiles has a crush on her. admittedly, that might be why she’s not encouraging it, but publicly dissing someone in front of their friends….

she didn’t have to kiss me like that. she could have kissed him first. she didn’t.

with the next batch, isaac gives jackson a peck on the cheek.

i am still chewing on that round’s chestnut when the next pops. it’s stiles’s. the second one is mine.

stiles takes a slug of the bottle in his hand. for a second, he looks at lydia. i’m expecting a bitter quip, scissored sarcasm. what i don’t expect, however, is for stiles to charge. before me, he drops—just fucking drops—in a crunch of leaves. fingers grab right and left tips of my collar. i am yanked.

people don’t yank me. it’s not something that happens.

my chestnut goes down the wrong pipe.

also, stiles bites me. it’s not intentional (i can tell), but his teeth clamp down hard on my bottom lip and i can't breathe—the chestnut—and boyd decides this is a good moment to get off the bench so we topple backwards. tongue slides up my cheek, and there is saliva making contact with my eyeball.

i am trying to lift up, hacking my heart out. stiles is straddling me. i taste my own blood from the clash of teeth. i manage to turn to the side to cough out the nut.

when i turn back, stiles's eyes are twin clock faces. they look as if they wish to turn back time.

stiles: uh, didn't mean for that to..... um. oh god.

i think i nod. as i wipe at my stinging my eye, the laughter erupts.

scott: does hale still need the heimlich?

isaac: i thought we said no uninvited force?

boyd: sorry i got off the bench.

(boyd doesn't look remotely sorry)

erica, a bit tipsy, pats the seat next her looking deeply empathetic. stiles, with lips still wet, takes the seat, laughing a little too high. scott comes over, still cackling, and plops down next to his friend. stiles darts a glance at lydia who is frowning at me with way too much calculation. meanwhile, stiles avoids my gaze at all costs as he takes a rather large gulp of spiked cider.

the rest of the night is calmer. scott looks ready to wet himself as he presses a close-mouthed kiss on allison. i kiss isaac’s cheek and he blushes. jackson attempts to make out with cora—who punches him. erica lays one on a shocked and happy boyd.

at least the tree is satisfied.

.

.

.

.

i have second lunch in the cafeteria. most of my friends graduated last year, and the ones that are in my year, i tend to avoid these days. besides, boyd is decent company—well, normally. today, he is hogging his second pudding cup. he is _chatty._

boyd: so yeah, erica is cool, right?

me: based on that kiss, i’d say she likes you.

boyd: i don't know if i want to use that standard . . . cora definitely got more action.

boyd deserves pain from the ninth layer of hell—he dodges my attempt to deck him, all smiles.

boyd: and if stilinski’s was anything to go by . . .

i grimace but the memory causes me to spare a glance toward stiles’s usual spot. he sits with scott and their friends. today, however, scott is not so mysteriously absent (considering that allison is also missing), so stiles is eating with a single friend. i’m about to turn back to my lunch when there’s an outbreak of laughter from jackson’s table. i catch my name in his speech.

jackson: so stilinki’s pops and hale’s is second and—

lydia is sitting next to jackson. she’s the sole person at the table who is not smiling with anticipation. still, when jackson bends down to fake-bite her—then lick up her cheek—she plays along, even going so far as to pound her chest and fake a choke.

not just their table but all of the surrounding tables burst into laughter. jackson looks triumphant and lydia looks shut off as she wipes jackson’s saliva off her cheek and takes out a compact to survey the damage to her makeup. everyone is casting glances at stiles.

a few people look my way. i’m used to it. they’ve been casting glances since _she_ died. this time, the smiles are different, though. some of their smiles are wink-wink, like we’re on the same side.

we are not on the same side.

we aren’t even the same species.

between my clenched teeth and the way my fork starts to squeal in my grip, it’s like the wind has picked up in the room, because all the gazes turn away at once.

regardless, this is the moment when stiles is supposed to flip jackson the bird. he’s supposed to say and _what about when cora punched you?_ or something more clever. stiles always has a barb on the tip of his tongue. except this time his face pales. his friend on the other side of the table reaches out to grab his hand, but stiles snatches it away. fucking harrington blows a kiss at stiles and calls _safest from this distance, right stilinski?_ stiles’s lips form a line, and i can tell he’s trying to hold it in. that doesn’t happen. after a tight word to his friend, he grabs his bag and books it out of the cafeteria.

for some reason, this gets me more than anything else. because you never run from predators. especially not from the likes of whitmore.

boyd: calm down, man. you know your little sister is going to eviscerate jackson. cora would never have invited him if she thought he would sink so low. especially over a stupid kissing game.

it’s the edge to his voice that makes me realize that i have bent my fork into a _u_ -shape. it takes me a moment longer to realize how _angry_ i am. i have been angry. at ennis. at my stupid uncle who fled like a coward rather than face me—but that anger has gone nowhere. i can’t demand retribution against an alpha for a bite that was supposed to work. i can’t blame my uncle for trying to give me what i wanted deep down. the only person i can blame is myself. except now there is jackson. and i hate him. i hate him so so much and that’s . . . not a bad feeling.

me: boyd, give me your snack pack.

he shields the pudding cup protectively, before his mouth twists in a knowing grin.

boyd: only if you’re gonna do what i think you’re gonna do.

me: give me the damn cup.

boyd hands over the cup. i grab a table knife, but i don’t use it as i lower the cup under the table. instead i unleash my claws, piercing the plastic container over and over again until it’s mesh and oozing chocolate in spots. on the other side of the cafeteria, i can smell jackson. i hear the squeak of his sperrys, his self-absorbed laugh. i throw the plastic cup over my shoulder.

there’s a splat: a screech splits the lunch room.

normally so stoic, boyd is biting his bottom lip and trembling so hard, i think he might draw blood. under the table he offers his fist up for a bump.

boyd: fuck. you don’t have to pay me back for that one.

me: wasn’t planning on it.

the smell of chocolate and milk is bright with the new laughter in the air. jackson is furiously scanning the room. i hear the grit of his jaw as he wipes the chocolate off his face. when his gaze alights on our table, boyd smiles like a lion.

boyd: derek, come on, you gonna look at him? he knows it was you. who else has that aim?

i shake my head and lean back, crossing my arms over my head.

me: no need. i know what a shit head looks like.

.

.

our ap history professor is on maternity leave. still, there’s no way to prepare yourself when the “teacher” who walks into the room has highway legs, hair down to her ass, and a smile that tingles right up your jean’s zipper. what’s especially disorienting is that she’s allison’s aunt. her name is kate _argent._

allison has no clue about the whole werewolf thing. her family has kept her in the dark even while training her to be an expert with a crossbow. the most her parents do is make noise about her being friends with cora, but my mom met with allison’s dad and they talked about rules and all of that crap. still allison’s aunt isn’t exactly sweet. in fact, after class she conspicuously asks me to say behind, eliciting whistles from some of the guys.

kate: you don’t have a problem with me being your teacher, do you?

she’s bent forward over her desk. her shirt is a v-neck. it’s not low cut unless she’s standing, well, bent forward like she is. i jerk my eyes back to her shoulder, but i can tell she’s smiling.

me: are you planning to kill me?

kate: only if you’re very very bad.

i killed the girl i loved. i suppose that counts.

kate: i know your eyes are blue. your mom spoke with my brother about it. it’s okay. i understand. it’s horrible what your uncle did—what ennis did. poor paige. poor you, already caught up in tragic young love.

me: i have to go to the gym.

kate: good idea. burn off all that energy.

.

.

stiles is not in gym the next hour. he’s supposed to be. it’s the one class i have with him. i find mccall, back against his locker and hearts in his eyes. it sickens me in a way that it shouldn’t.

me: where’s stiles?

mccall dopily smiles at me. i do not punch him.

scott: he’ll be here soon. he has this class.

me: you are the worst friend.

scott only slightly frowns as i march over to finstock and make up some excuse about having left my homework in my last class.

finstock: go, go, go. i don't care what you do as long as you’re at lacrosse practice next week. since you’re dumping basketball, harris hates me so much. it makes faculty lunches worth going to. hah! now go, hale, before i have to pretend i’m . . . fair.

he signs my hall pass and waves me away.

sniffing out stiles in a high school full of smells takes my entire concentration. i end up following his trail from the cafeteria to the school’s auditorium, where i take the steps up the stage and through the curtains until stiles’s smell suddenly thickens. stepping around an enormous fake boulder, i find stiles sitting on a fake guillotine. i’d forgotten that the school is doing a production of _the scarlet pimpernel._

upon seeing me, he pulls the string, and the foil crescent plummets.

stiles: leave me to my misery. or did you come to personally shame me?

me: i came to see if you were okay. jackson is an asshole.

stiles doesn’t react.

me: are you okay?

stiles: uh, yesterday was bad enough with the whole having the girl of my dreams watch me make a fool out of myself as i chomped on your lip—still sorry about that by the way, dude, but then today her douche bag ex-boyfriend had his little small dick pageant in the cafeteria so as to ensure that _no one will ever want to kiss me or date me or anything_ —so that basically leaves me with high school celibacy unless i can find someone outside of beacon hills who is drunk and has never heard of me, or i guess i can graduate a year early and attempt to “remake myself” in college. all awesome choices.

me: it’s not a big deal. it’s just kissing.

the act itself doesn’t mean much. it’s the person. i don’t say this.

stiles: please stop trying to minimize my pain. it actually makes it more painful, especially coming from the person who causes most of the girls in the school—and a good percentage of the boys if they’d own to it—to start inching down their undergarments when you breeze by with your fuck-everything ‘tude on your perfect face.

i am miserable. there is nothing about that that is attractive to sane people.

me: no one is good when they first do it. spit goes everywhere. you have to figure out what the other person likes.

the words sound false. my speech sounds like something people say because they have to fill in the silence.

stiles: great advice, dude. i’ll be sure to put it to use when i’m thirty.

 _there_ is the sarcasm that i have missed. i sit down on the edge of the fake guillotine and stare at stiles’s drawn face. he has always been weirdly pretty. he’d be better looking if he lost the stupid hair cut (cora keeps telling him this). regardless, i remember him when his mom died. he was so wrecked and yet i remember him hugging his dad and saying _i love you_ with all his might, like it could save both of them. i think, maybe, it did.

suddenly, i feel like i have to fix this, and that’s when i realize what i need to do.

me: sit up.

stiles: why?

me: i’m going to teach you.

stiles: teach me what?

me: how to kiss. open your mouth.

stiles doesn’t open his mouth so much as gape.

stiles: you just said—um, those words strung together—crap—uh, do you even like boys?

me: i’m about two seconds from changing my mind.

stiles slowly raises the guillotine’s slat off his neck before scooting up.

stiles: okay, okay, just if there are boners—you can’t punch me. that is a rule.

me: close your eyes.

stiles: right. closing them. is this really happening? you aren’t filming this to further humiliate me, are you? you should know, i did backstage tech last year. i know where all the buttons are.

he sneaks another peak. i press my finger against his misbehaving eyelid to pull the blind back down.

me: relax your jaw, your mouth.

i push his knee off the bench, so that it straightens and i can get closer. stiles’s breaths are sharp. his eyelashes flicker like he’s fighting the urge to peek with all his might. when i cup the sides of his face, he involuntarily smiles.

me: i said _relax._

in place of the smile i get a small, frustrated huff. this is when i lean in to press my lips against his.

he immediately tries to kiss me back. i pull away.

me: not yet. just stay relaxed. i want you to know how it’s supposed to feel.

stiles nods.

i start with the corners. the arrow feathers at the ends. i follow the curve of his bottom lip before tasting the top chevron. stiles makes a soft gasp when i hold his jaw and lock his upper lip. i pull away and explain.

me: that’s lip-locking. if you immediately go for the tongue, most people won't be ready for it. so, i kissed your top lip. now kiss my bottom.

stiles’s eyes are squeezed shut, but he’s nodding. he leans in and pushes my hands away so he can hold my face steady. with the trembling of his balmy fingertips, the kiss to my cheek is unexpected, but more surprising is stiles dragging his lips across my skin, tip-toeing in the crease of my chin before finally following my instructions and locking us in a press, and i’m thinking _fast learner_ when he sucks ever so slightly.

with another gasp he switches for the top. i let him. i keep my lips parted and am gifted with more enthusiastic presses and nips.

somehow our knees are pressed hard together. breathless, i pull back.

me: that’s good. it’s good.

stiles’s eyes are over-dilated in the theater’s shadows. he meets mine for a single, shy second before his gaze settles back on my lips. his panting breath drifts, puffs of cloud, into the drizzle of my own.

stiles: what next?

me: same as before. relax. i’m going to—

stiles: tongue is okay. a-okay. don’t mind at all.

i thumb his nose. this close, he laughs and dips his head into my shoulder. i don’t think he even realizes how blatantly he’s flirting. the wet brush of his breath digs wells into the pores of my neck. i have to fight off a tremor as i scratch my fingers into his hair, pulling him up so that i can show him.

his lips are tight are all over again. i have to kiss him open and whisper _relax_ then _relax more_ until he lets me fully have control. he keeps trying to take it back—probably out of nerves—but i keep chanting the words over and over, and when i scratch my nails across his scalp (and he gasps because he’s always gasping), i flick my tongue into the dark.

there is a pop of salt and sugar before immediately, stiles’s tongue is meeting my own with a wooly curlicue.

snorting, i pull back.

me: not _yet._

stiles: you taste like meat.

his eyes say he didn’t actually mean to say that.

me: i had leftover roast for lunch.

stiles: i like roast.

me: okay.

stiles: what do i taste like?

my first thought is stress but . . .

me: one second.

i thumb open his mouth. i draw us back together with force. stiles makes a choked sound but doesn’t draw away as i map out his cheeks, his teeth, and the valley of his tongue. then i draw back, confident in my assessment.

me: ketchup and curly fries and a coke. have you heard of protein?

stiles: you saw what i ate at lunch.

i didn’t pay the slightest bit of attention.

me: maybe.

stiles doesn’t look sad anymore. i’m not surprised when he licks his bottom lip.

stiles: can i?

me: don’t worry if there’s drool. also don’t be afraid to swallow.

he laughs with a wrinkled nose, and then stiles closes his eyes, leans in, and begins. he imitates my actions with near-precision, only with his fingernails sprawled on the back of my neck instead of my hair. he’s kissing me with sharp breaths, with an up-and-down bob. there is, as predicted, too much spit.

i tilt him up, swipe my tongue, and when the swell is heavy at the back of my throat, i drink it down. stiles uses the angle to push harder, to thrust his tongue and suddenly his knees are wrapping over mine; his hand is sliding down my back and—and it’s not like paige—but it is, because my every instinct is to break for his neck. to slide my fingers along the inside of his thigh. to thrust in my fingers and drag his smell out into the center of the room.

which is how i started to want—

it’s how i started to fall—

i break away, gasping. stiles falls back, and upon realizing he’s more or less crawled into my lap, he makes a hoarse whimper, scrambling back, arms flailing.

five long seconds pass. when i look up, stiles has his arms crossed, his legs crossed, pretty much his whole body crossed.

stiles: we had a rule.

it takes me a minute to figure out what he’s talking about.

me: it’s not that. i don’t care about that. i just—i haven’t done this since—i need to go.

stiles blinks at me. his lips are strawberry. his chin is scratched pink.

stiles: cora told me about—about how you found her right before she—

he bites his own bruised lip. for once, i don’t want to hit a person for “offering their condolences.” it’s like before when i gave him the canned speech. i was trying. now he’s trying. just there’s nothing words can do.

me: so that is how you kiss.

stiles: got it.

.

.

the rest of the day my body is thrumming. i notice things i have not noticed in months. isaac’s coat smells like the graveyard. harris has a boner the entirety of our history class. it’s why he never leaves the podium and snaps at all the wrong answers. cora smells that stiles is covered in my scent and doesn’t say a damn word, but maybe that’s because her internal compass is boiling every time it points jackson’s direction.

after school, i do not go home and up the stairs to my bedroom where i slide into my bed and pull down my shorts. i do not chug and yank or press my wet lips into the opposite palm as all lines blur and i can’t focus my vision. i do not end up with gummy stick on my fingers and a load of laundry on my to-do list.

or even if i do . . . it’s not while thinking of a hot little arrowhead in my mouth or fingernails at the back of my neck—because paige used to kiss me like she was tattling – _like you should know better but i’ll let you get away with it this once_ – she ran her hands down my back with easy swirls like the trapezoid shape was a musical instrument she could weave into her own harmony.

just, she never used her nails like that.

later, when my mom asks me about kate, i shrug it off and tell her it’s nothing to worry about.

.

.

.

.

i think—i’m not 100% sure—but after the pudding cup story going around the school, cora’s private evisceration of jackson, and dare i say, the kissing lesson, stiles seems to be doing okay. also, jackson’s jokes suck.

jackson: greenberg, watch out for stilinski here. he might eat you.

stiles: nothing to worry about while whitmore is a walking snack pack.

jackson: i’ll make you take my pudding, you little—

this is when danny shoves his best friend.

danny: nobody is threatening anybody with _pudding_. jesus, jackson.

danny casts a glance at me and shakes his head in disbelief. not for the first time, i wonder why he is friends with jackson of all people. today is the first day of our pre-season lacrosse practice. the weather is cold, wet, and miserable. finstock is already blowing his whistle like it’s a cattle prod.

finstock: okay, hale is automatically captain because it will make you babies whine, but more importantly it will make harris lose his hair faster than me. the rest of you incompetents are expected to prove yourselves unworthy of my insults. now, run!

he blows the whistle. the pack of teenage boys takes off, a cacophony of strong and stuttered heartbeats combining with the pea soup stink carried out from the locker room. i keep pace next to boyd. part of me (the wolf) wants to leap out of my skin and race. part of me wants to stop dead and press my forehead into the dirt and dig my own hole. it’s my mother’s voice in the back of my head saying _there’s no difference between the wolf and the boy_ that keeps my knees rising in rhythm.

what’s annoying is that after boyd and me, jackson is definitely the fastest. at the back of the pack, i can’t not notice that stiles is encouraging scott along. not a good start.

when we actually break into teams to scrimmage, it gets even worse. danny makes a pass to stiles, and somehow stiles ends up clapping greenberg in his face. scott has to run off the field to get his inhaler. jackson makes a goal on isaac, and while i can tackle jackson to my heart’s content, there’s no reason he shouldn’t be on the team (he’s the best after me and boyd), just like there’s no way i can enchant coordination into my sister’s friends.

practice ends. jackson looks cocksure, and finstock keeps me afterwards, talking strategy. he won’t stop pounding me on the back like his fist is a gavel or maybe my back is his dinner bell.

finstock: good team this year. damn good team.

he’s still staring at me, hand in a clenched, victorious fist and smiling.

me: uh, coach?

finstock: right, go get dressed, showered, whatever—damn good team.

i walk into the locker room, and boyd is already dressed. i shuck off my shirt, grab my towel, and head for the showers just in time to see stiles walk out with only a towel for cover. for some reason i’m looking at his clenched fingers, at the jagged edge of his bitten-off nails. i’m realizing it’s been a week, and i’ve thought about that dark moment in the theater more times than i can count.

stiles: oh, hey. you, uh, did well. at practice.

he’s flushed but that’s probably because he is just out of the heat of the shower. i switch my focus to the wall. i don’t know what to say but i feel like i should say something.

me: you did good out there.

stiles snorts, shaking his head.

stiles: and by that, you mean i’ll be joining greenberg on the bench.

me: you just need pr—

i cannot finish that sentence. instead i swallow and clench my fingers around the knot of my towel. when stiles’s mouth twists like he’s about to crack a joke, i brush past him, yanking open a stall’s curtain. i don't look back. i strip off my shirt and jerk on the water and do not wonder why i am being such an idiot.

.

.

.

.

kate agent holds me after history class again.

kate: your last paper was good. you deserved that a.

i shrug. we’re covering tudor england. i had a lot to say about queen elizabeth. mostly that after watching all that bullshit with her family when she was young, she was smart for being permanently single.

kate: you know that my specialty is medieval mythology.

me: you’re an argent.

kate: i documented accounts of those who had received the bite. there aren’t many but i can tell you this: with teenagers, especially young virgins, they worked ninety nine times out of one hundred. except sometimes.

me: what are you talking about?

kate: if an alpha bites indiscriminately, for adding to the pack, it almost always works, but then there were the occasions when it didn’t work…

me: say it if you’re going to.

kate: when there was a love match without love. it’s very tragic. so you see, it wasn’t your fault, sweetheart.

me: don’t call me sweetheart.

kate: maybe, she didn’t actually love you.

paige told me: _i think i knew. i’ve seen things in this town before. things no one could explain. then there’s the way that you talk. how you say things like how you’d catch a scent. and i know you can hear things. things that no one else can hear. i knew._ i’d asked her: _and you still liked me?_ she’d said: _i loved you._ paige’s heartbeat was steadier than kate’s, despite the dots of tar on her dying lips.

me: shut up.

kate: it’s okay. i thought i loved someone once. he didn’t love me back. i understand.

me: did he die?

kate: he was a hunter. events went south on one our trips. i had to kill him.

me: that’s. . .

. . . nothing like what i went through. i’m assuming he got bitten. hunters are insane. he probably asked kate to push the knife in. then again, the bite could have gone wrong. like paige.

kate: a long story. i was seventeen when it happened. people told me i was too young to know better, but i knew that if i’d been paying attention when i was supposed to be paying attention, there was a chance i could have saved him. better yet, if i’d told him not to go—maybe i could have stopped it all together. i have replayed every scenario in my head a thousand times. you know what i learned?

me: no, but i bet you’re going to tell me.

kate: sometimes life bites you in the ass. you can’t control everything.

me: i love platitudes.

kate: what i’m saying is that it’s not your fault. it never was.

me: it’s not the same.

kate: do you know what makes it better?

i don’t answer. she’s leaning in close. the tips of canines look sharp, and with her hair falling loose from her bun, she looks very much not like a regular substitute teacher. i see a glinting in her cleavage and i’m pretty sure she’s got a knife wedged in there.

kate: vengeance.

her words hit in the center of my chest and alight. i think of paige shaking in my arms and i think of the root cellar as silent as a crypt. i remember my mom looking into my eyes and saying _different, but like the rest of you, still beautiful._ while she held me, i believed her, but then there were other stares, like this one. kate and i are deadlocked eye to eye when the bill rings. i’m late for my next class. kate shakes her head and leans back, picking up the pad of hall passes and signing one with a flourish.

kate: here you go.

i take the hall pass. i don’t miss how her fingers brush mine. her pinkie nail clips the corner of the nail on my ring finger. when i meet her eyes again, they’re as cold as my own, and yet she smiles.

kate: chin up, hale. you’re letting all the pretty girls in the school down with that frown.

me: whatever.

kate: oh, so you do know. good. it’s better that way.

me: how are you not fired?

kate: oh, i only let my hair down with you, since you’re a polygraph with a tail.

turning my face on her sly simper, i crumple the pass in my grip and head down the hall. if there is an extra stomp in my step, i just let it happen. if the center of my chest burns, i breathe it all in and let my eyes simmer beneath closed lids. i imagine what it would be like if they were blazing red. i imagine ennis’s vertebrae cracking between my teeth. with my claws, i wipe the smarm off my uncle’s face.

.

.

.

.

this time there’s no music. the forest has melted and winter break is fast upon us. sludge flies from the spin of my feet and the ball cracks a hole in the back of the goal. belatedly, i hear the crunch of footsteps but assume by the weight and purposeful tread that it’s cora.

not cora.

stiles: nice shot. like, really nice shot. i’m pretty sure that somewhere in the world, finstock just had an orgasm.

it’s funny but i don’t laugh. i’m too unnerved by his presence. i’ve been thinking about him. and after the last lacrosse practice, i thought he might try something. it’s _stiles_ so he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself. he’s a walking cannon ball—but he didn’t. instead, i’ve been the one who’s been staring, watching, tracking his scent through the school.

me: what do you want?

stiles: uh, cora said you were out here, doing your thing or whatever.

me: and?

stiles: and i came to annoy you? my feet started moving. then i was here before i could not be? i didn’t dance so you can’t complain.

now i’m thinking about his ass gyrating. his cheeks aren’t flushed like the last time, but the flick of his eyes is somewhat impish. i can tell, though, by the crunch of his stance that he’s nervous. and i don’t really want him to be nervous. i point at the ball down the ridge.

me: pick that up.

stiles: i’m not going to be your ball boy. that is not in the occupational journal of acceptable things for stiles to do.

me: you’re going to need a ball if you’re going to take a shot.

stiles goes and gets a ball. i hand him my crosse, and to our mutual surprise, he hits the net dead center.

stiles: i am amazing!

me: do it again, and i’ll believe you.

he does not do it again. in fact, the shot goes so wide it hits the flaccid basketball. it falls out of the tree with a dull thud. based on stiles’s stance and grip, i’m not that surprised.

stiles: best out of three?

me: see that tape on the stick? that’s the twelve inch mark. put your left hand right on the edge. yeah, like that. also, your left arm needs to be out on the side of your body. don’t pin it when you spin. you’ve got a good thrust, but you’re not getting the torque you could be if you were in the correct position.

stiles: like this?

he’s actually listened to me. everything is more or less in the correct position, but now it’s like someone screwed a bolt too tight.

me: relax.

stiles frowns at me. i don’t have to ask why. (he’s remembering the last time i said that.) as i step behind him, i put my ankle next to his, pushing out slightly. i use one hand to grip his hip and the other to adjust his position on the stick. i hear his heart speed up. i know why. my own heart is matching the pace of his. i also know i should be stepping away. i shouldn’t be out here alone with him. i almost like that i don’t care that i am. i want to know what he smells like.

stiles: are we still practicing?

me: you’d be better at lacrosse if you kept your mind on the game.

stiles: as opposed to what?

me: worrying about scott.

stiles: that’s not why i’m distracted.

he leans his head back so it’s resting against the top of my shoulder, like i’m his pillow, except then he turns his head so that his left eye is narrowed on me like a hawk’s. his nose is brushing my chin. his breathing is the soft chugging of a steam engine, and his body is all tense rails. it makes me think: we’re at the switch in the tracks.

me: then why are you distracted?

i’m staring at his lips.

stiles: that’s not how this works. you’re the perfect looking one. i’m the one who’s looking at you with a laundry list of my inadequacies. you’re not supposed to lure me into traps to further feed your ego.

me: i wouldn’t trap you. i wouldn’t do that.

not on purpose.

stiles: okay, previous rule applies. and don’t you dare fuck with me and say you don’t know what i’m talking about because we both know.

me: like this.

i twist his whole body with mine. the stick cuts the air in a perfect whoosh.

me: one more time.

stiles’s grip is unsteady and trembling as i swing us. this shot is not the last one. if we’d been using a ball, it would possibly have gone flying not forward but behind us. or maybe that’s because stiles is twisting in my hands. maybe it’s because the stick is tossed into soggy grass. maybe it’s because stiles’s boots squish in the mud as he presses up to wrap his arms around my neck and breathe a long groan into the collar of my coat.

he is younger. he is smaller. he is cora’s friend. i should be pushing him away. i don’t deserve him but i want him.

yes, i want him.

yes, i do.

i pull his chin up, and then just like that, he’s opening to me. his eyelashes are fluttering. he tastes of forest and grilled cheese. one second he’s there and the next second he’s breaking to the side. the fast spatter of kisses—all over my mouth, my chin, the tip of my nose—forces me to chase his lips. he’s laughing, no, giggling (there’s too much breathless, relieved, giddy joy to call it anything else) as i walk him back into a tree, and this time, there is no lesson. this time his leg loops around mine to get us closer. his neck is a canvas asking for blooms of color, and when i take my teeth to his collarbone, his exhale is smothered. his fingers, sticky and so eager, dig into the layers of my coat until they find my skin and fan scratches down the hills of my ass.

stiles: how are you real?

i’m not.

me: shut up.

stiles bites my ear before licking it. he drags his chin along my cheek.

stiles: can we go back to your room?

i shake my head. there’s cora. there’s laura. there’s my mom and dad. there could be flipping out and lectures. i’m so sick of it all. i like this private little thing. i like how happy he smells. instead, i jack up our coats. i jam us together, and when i get the slot right, i kiss him, pressing him hard against the tree. i grind us together. i hike his left hip and the angle is better, and there are thirty seconds of frenzied back and forth before stiles is a scream in my mouth as we rock and twigs and dead leaves rain down around us.

i take longer, but stiles is melting whispers. he is fingernails cutting puzzle pieces into my back. when i feel my spine tighten, i bury my face in his neck to hide the glow in my eyes, and i don’t think about what it means that i never let the wolf so close with paige. (less control now)(the scent of stiles’s slick)(my eyes are blue) but there’s part of me that wants to protect him and part of me that wants to rip him apart, and i don’t know what that means.

i wash us off with icy water from the creek and stiles shrieks until i offer to use my tongue. then he’s nothing but bluster and blush, and he’s a boy—he’s male, but he’s beautiful. god, he is. i haven’t ever even looked at a boy this way, with so much intent and imagination, but now i’m worried i won’t stop.

my face must say as much because stiles flicks his fingers at my stomach like it’s offending him.

stiles: i want to see you naked.

i stare at him. girls in my high school are not this forward.

stiles: come over tomorrow after lacrosse.

me: i don’t know if i should.

stiles: we don’t have to… i mean, we could just hang out.

me: i don’t know.

instead of backing down, stiles zips up his coat. he’s shivering and chewing on the inside of his cheek, but his heart beat is so steady.

stiles: scott’s stupid with allison. i already did my history essay. i’ve been playing too much skyrim.

i turn away from him.

me: there’s no such thing as too much skyrim.

stiles grabs my hand and pulls me back. he’s biting his bottom lip in a way that is causing it to chap.

stiles: just don’t say no.

.

.

.

.

lacrosse practice is over, and stiles is plastered to the bench beside my locker. i take my time getting dressed, on-and-off rolling my eyes at him because he’s being so obvious. predictably, the moment we’re alone, his hand dips in his pants. he’s adjusting himself, and yes, i watch that. more so, he’s watching me watch him watch me, and how did i get here?

stiles doesn’t even say a word when i pick up my bag. what he does is grab the strap and pull me out to the parking lot until we’re driving to his place. then we’re upstairs in his room. i’ve never been here, but it stinks in a good way, like fallen leaves musty with autumn rot. i’m thumbing through the magazines on his desk when stiles settles his hands on the back of my hips, fingers hooking under the hem of my shirt.

stiles: can i?

me: yeah.

the shirt catches on my chin but then stiles tugs hard. it’s sailing off. his eyes are huge, twin saturns that are wide and ringed with swirls of reverberating light as he looks me up and down.

stiles: fuck.

i sit back on his bed. then he’s falling to his knees. his hands are on my shorts, and he’s fully clothed. there’s something about this that is unbalanced—because he is the beautiful one—he’s the one who is bright with untainted excitement.

stiles: can i?

me: yeah.

my shorts are off, then my boxers. the room is cool. stiles is pressing me back onto his bed. he is a much needed weight in my lap as he kisses bird tracks across my chest, licking when the fancy takes him. my hands are on his cheeks with my dick hard between his legs. when i can’t take it anymore, i snap a kiss against his neck. then he’s gripping my biceps, hard like they’re metal instead of flesh. his fingers trace the wires of my surface blood vessels. there’s so much sweet awe that it maybe hurts. maybe i want his mouth to close. but either way, i flip us, and i’m shelling off the layers of his clothes, and stiles’s hands jerk to cover himself because he doesn’t _know_. he’s warm and shined with sweat from lacrosse practice and anticipation. his body looks like mine a year ago, when no amount of weight lifting would make a difference. his chest is bare except for the happy trail that descends into his boxers. i follow the line into the shadow of his pants. i want to put my nose there. my tongue.

me: can i?

stiles: god, yes. or no. or jesus, just like it.

me: i like you.

i should say: _i like the way you smell. i like the way you’re spitfire and so much smoke that it blinds. i like the way you give me my space until i cross into yours, and then you invade me mercilessly. even when i think i shouldn’t want you to (i do)._

but i don’t say any of that.

he’s nodding, and i’m shrugging down his shorts, and then there’s the circle of dark, stiles-warm curls, and i bury my nose. stiles is kicking at his boxers while simultaneously tangling his fingers above my ears like he might have to push me away because it’s too much. i’m not surprised when i meet his eyes and they’re all questions.

me: i’ve never done this before.

stiles: you don’t have to. um, seriously. i’ll last two seconds.

he is perfect. i need to show him this.

me: try for three.

i am worried about my teeth. i’m worried about my wolf. i’m worried about how much i want to. it’s too easy to butt his thighs wider. he is heavy and fragrant in my grip. the sour at the tip changes to musk as i glide my lips down. stiles’s hips are bucking, and he is cursing, and yet i’m falling, sucking back up, and stiles’s hands are fucking pulling my hair like we’re in a grade school tussle. his thumb is wiping across my brow. i can feel the way he’s crunched forward, abs shivering as he watches me.

there’s a kiss. then he comes with his bottom teeth sharp against my hairline. my mouth is full. the taste is deeply animal. it takes a lot of control to keep my eyes dull and not glowing. when i finally look at him, he is gaping again.

stiles: you did not swallow.

i almost laugh.

me: i did not swallow.

i wipe the smear off my lip.

stiles make a noise that is more soprano than bass.

that’s when i grab his hand, his long thin fingers, and slide them up my own dick.

stiles: this is what you want? because i could…

i jerk his fist.

his rhythm is good. i can tell when he’s using the technique he uses on himself and when he’s adjusting to try and accommodate me. it’s good. it’s relaxing. i’m relaxed. until i’m not. then i’m leaking through his fingers and we’re kissing with the sticky fist between us.

i’m lying there when he comes back with a wash cloth. he’s staring at me with wide eyes again. his gaze falls to my balls.

stiles: i want to look. can i?

me: it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.

stiles: shut up. i have _you_ in my bed. i’m going to look.

for the next five minutes, i am both wiped clean and exclaimed over.

stiles: you have no scars. and how are your balls handsome? balls by definition are hairy potato sacks. yours look like they got a snip and perm at the beauty parlor. do you groom? wait. i’ve decided you groom so don’t try and lie to me. my own rutabagas are feeling deeply insecure with their bald patches and scraggly comb-over’s. and how is it possible to have that many abdominal muscles while still in high school? it’s not fair. do you know freaking amy wells has a picture of you from that swim party that she _sells_?

it’s not only the tapping of his fingers but the constant prattle of his thoughts that keeps me drifting on clouds. i’m not even bothered when he crawls off me.

stiles: hey, i have english crap that i’m ignoring. you wanna play skyrim?

i finally leave when his dad gets home. and no, i don’t miss stiles’s stammered goodbye or the way his dad’s brows climb to the ceiling.

.

.

.

.

stiles is sitting next to me in the cafeteria. scott is sitting cheek to cheek with allison on the other side of the room. at the moment, boyd doesn’t know how to handle this. it’s sort of like watching a hound dog confused over a kitten that won’t stop biting its ear.

stiles: boyd, how’s your sister? i haven’t seen her since my mom, you know?

boyd’s sister had cancer. she got better but is still high risk.

boyd: she’s fine. annoying.

stiles: she’s so cute. she still call you “boy toy?” is she old enough to know what that means now? she’s like nine, right?

boyd’s eyes say _derek, make him stop_.

i’m about to make a joke when some dickhead—winston, maybe? waffleton? starts to sing.

w-something: hale and stilinski sitting in a tree—k-i-

boyd just sighs when i steal his pudding cup and harpoon it at the guy. stiles watches the whole event with wide eyes. he doesn’t laugh like boyd does when the cup hits his target. his eyes widen, though, when a fruit cup is thrown back in retaliation and i snatch it out of the air. i think about chucking it back, but i give it to boyd, who gladly takes it. he likes fruit cups, too.

stiles: uh, i think lydia is coming over here.

lydia is coming over with her practiced, petite sashay. her hair flips over her shoulder as she sits down on other side of me. she ignores stiles.

me: what, lydia?

lydia: so, mr. smiles, winter formal is the weekend after next.

me: that’s nice.

lydia: so we’ll probably have to dance together.

me: or not.

lydia laughs like we’re engaged in wordplay over cocktails, but seriously, it’s the night of the full moon. also, i don’t like her. she’s vain, wearing so many masks she doesn’t even know what her true skin is. it doesn’t matter that i can relate.

lydia: it’s called the winter court. i crunched the numbers on the votes. even allowing for a wide margin of error, it’s going to be you and me that are crowned. i know, it surprised me, too.

me: if i were going.

lydia: you’re going. i know you know how to two-step. i saw you at junior prom last year.

when i was with paige.

i don’t know what look comes over my face, but suddenly boyd is offering lydia his fruit cup, and lydia is actually taking it. when she’s finally gone, stiles is shaking my tray.

stiles: stop baring your teeth. it’s bad manners.

i don’t say anything.

i don’t even say anything when he mutters something under his breath and leaves.

boyd: what _the fuck_ are you doing, hale?

well, and then i pick up my bag and i leave.

.

.

kate argent is wearing a skirt without underwear. on a normal person the skirt would be long but with her legs, it’s not that long. we’re currently covering the glorious revolution and the house of orange. kate is eating an orange carrot, apparently because carrots used to be all different colors (purple, yellow, etc.) but as a statement of loyalty, the netherlands popularized the orange color in support of their house. the things she is doing to that carrot are making the whole room stink of teenage boy. even i’m not unaffected. there’s the way the hunk of carrot bulges on the side of her mouth that makes me think of stiles. it makes me look away.

when class is over, she stops by my desk.

kate: sorry. bad laundry day.

me: you know i can tell when you’re lying.

kate: how do you know my heart wasn’t stuttering for a different reason? i could have been thinking of my lunch. i’m only three classes in, and i’m already sick of root vegetables.

me: hunters do like fresh meat.

kate laughs, and honestly, i like that she’s laughing. i shouldn’t enjoy these face-offs, but i do. she hates what i am but she doesn’t seem to mind who i am. besides the fact that her conversation is as close to honesty as i get from someone not in my family. still, i shouldn’t be as close to her as i am. i realize this the moment that stiles walks into the room.

stiles: hi, miss argent. _derek_?

kate turns to stiles with a swish of her skirt. the smell is intensely female, and i have to suck in a breath.

kate: if it isn’t my _favorite_ student, the one who actually does his reading. derek, did you know that stiles is covering sub-saharan myths? i lent him some books that he’s returning to me early, just like he promised.

this is when i see the books in stiles’s hands. _oral traditions of the desert moon_ is next to _mythology and the slave trade: tales of freedom_. god, he’s probably read the word “werewolf” over and over again.

me: stiles is a good student.

kate: so you know each other?

me: he’s friends with cora.

stiles: uh, i have to get to class. . .

i’m not looking at him because i know that the look he’s giving me is . . .

except my not-looking makes it worse. you can’t hide fish under the nose of a cat.

the moment stiles is gone, kate flips open one of the books. there’s a picture of a black-skinned tribe with glowing eyes and long claws. the white slavers run in terror. she shuts the book with a crack.

kate: his dad is the sheriff, and he’s so clever. i had been thinking of training him up. he’s good friends with allison, but then you found him first, didn’t you?

me: i said he’s friends with my sister. i have to go.

kate: yes, go ahead. just, let’s not pretend, okay, derek?

me: put on some fucking underwear.

kate shrugs and crunches on a carrot.

kate: i’m not the only one who likes fresh meat.

.

.

stiles leaves lacrosse without waiting for me. i have to catch him in the parking lot.

stiles: i didn’t think you’d follow.

me: don’t be stupid.

stiles looks at me like i don’t get it, but then he shakes his head, like he’s shaking off the world, like he’s shaking me off. regardless, he follows me to the car.

.

.

we end up in a tangle of legs on his couch. stiles kisses me with bites, with lazy spit. he scratches his hands down my ribs. the sensation sends me into overdrive. i have to take bath-tub sized gulps of air. my control is loose, barely reigned in. stiles’s skin, his scent beckons. i have to yank the blinds down so we’re not exposed to the street.

when it’s over there is thin layer of white coating our stomachs.

stiles: like mayonnaise.

me: with pickles.

stiles laughs so hard i’m not sure what to do except kiss him silent.

.

.

.

.

at the next lacrosse practice, danny mahealani asks me to the winter formal. i’m so shocked that i don’t say anything. normally, these things don’t surprise me. normally, i sense them coming from a mile away. normally i stop them at the first inch. unless they’re stiles.

danny: by the face you’re wearing i’m going to assume that’s a _no_.

me: it’s not you. i’m not going to the dance.

danny: so you’re not into guys? because i asked cora. . .

it’s at this moment that stiles brushes past, knocking my elbow. he’s not looking at me as he smiles too wide at danny.

stiles: derek definitely plays both sides of the fence.

and then he’s walking away, and danny is wearing an expression that is a little too wise.

danny: i didn’t know.

me: i have to go.

in fact, i take off at a dead sprint. i catch stiles with his keys out, trying to get the keys in the lock. he drops them when i rest my hand on his shoulder.

stiles: leave me the fuck alone.

me: i didn’t know he was going to do that.

stiles shakes his keys in my face.

stiles: you are missing the point.

he smells hurt. i rub my eyes, and i don’t know what to do. at the very least, i don’t want to be in the center of the parking lot.

me: can we get in the jeep?

stiles looks like he wants to snap something scalding, but instead he unlocks the doors and we get inside. he’s not looking at me. i hate it. i hate the distance. i see the way his eyes are hopping among all the people in the parking lot like connect-the-dots. i don’t want to be here anymore, but i also don’t want to tell him to drive, so instead, i just lay my head down in his lap.

stiles: what are you doing?

me: hiding from the world.

stiles: because you don’t want them to see us.

me: because i don’t want anyone to see me—except you.

with an exhale, stiles starts petting my hair.

stiles: it doesn’t work that way, you know. this is beacon hell.

me: let me pretend.

stiles continues petting my hair until the sun fades to a dull pink. when i glance up at the clock, it’s 4:38 p.m., and we’ve got minutes left of limited winter daylight. i’m leaning into his touch when he swears unintelligibly and starts the jeep up.

stiles: once we hit the road, you better sit up straight. i’m not getting dragged into my dad’s office because some deputy on traffic patrol thought i was getting blown by my boyfriend.

i sit up off his lap even as i crank the lever on the seat so that i can lie all the way back.

me: i can wait until we get to your place to do that.

stiles: jesus, you’re an asshole.

he’s smiling again.

.

.

.

.

i’m in my bedroom, door closed, and working on my calculus homework when cora charges into my room.

me: go away.

i don’t have a chance to bat her away before her nose is buried in my neck. by the time i smack at her, she’s already dodged. from the narrowing of her eyes, she’s already figured it out.

cora: so danny was right. you and stiles.

i focus on the equation on the paper. _y = 3sinx - 4cosx_. it’s easy enough. basic stuff.

me: it’s none of your business.

cora: wrong, he’s my friend. you’re my screwed up brother. it’s not just my business, it’s my responsibility.

me: go away.

cora: he didn’t tell me. you know, stiles normally tells me everything. he normally tells scott everything. he hasn’t said a word about this.

me: scott has his head up his ass over allison. you’re my nosy sister.

cora is scrutinizing my face. she walks over to peer down at my homework as i write: _f'(x) = 4sin(x) + 3cos(x)_

cora: just tell me that you really like him.

me: none of your business.

cora: then tell me that he’s not your rebound from paige _because_ if you’re just screwing around with him—that’s not okay, derek. there are lots of silly airheads who eye-hump you at school. stiles is not one of them.

she’s staring at me. she’s waiting.

me: i would never do that to him.

it’s my job to protect him.

cora: you should invite him over. it would make mom happy. she likes him. better yet, she likes to mother him since his own mom died. she can’t help herself.

me: he’s over here often enough because of you.

cora: it won’t happen again. he isn’t paige. he’s stiles.

i know the difference.

me: go away.

.

.

.

.

my parents’ holiday party is friday and stiles is there, and i kind of hate it, but my mom is smiling. she’s had too much to drink and is cracking stupid jokes.

mom: you need to eat more sausage.

stiles: they’re delicious, but i’m so full.

mom: i feel it’s my personal obligation to get as much protein in you as possible. you’re a growing boy.

stiles: if i eat an ounce more, i might explode.

mom: darling, i’m sure derek wouldn’t mind a little protein in the face.

stiles starts choking and my mom is laughing. i pointedly steer him away.

me: she’s only on the third drink. the dancing starts when she gets to the fourth.

stiles: i like dancing.

me: no one wants to see their mother undulate. no one.

stiles: i like your mom, though maybe she’s a little too okay with this? my dad doesn’t even know.

me: sure about that?

stiles: well, he sort of knows. he keeps asking why you don’t stay for dinner.

we’re in the foyer, right next to the coat closet and the smells of cloves and peppermint are thick in the small cove. from the kitchen, the scent of chestnuts wafts from the broiler. stiles is dark-eyed with moles like miniature chocolate chips, and god, he’s unfair.

stiles: what?

me: just you.

i’ve just bent down for a kiss when the door swishes open.

the smell sends me in a tailspin.

uncle peter: and what have we here. moved on already, nephew?

the noise that comes out of my throat is barely human. i’ve pushed stiles behind my back and i’m holding his wrist too hard. i can’t even tell if my eyes are glowing. i taste blood along my gum line.

uncle peter: manners, derek. that’s _stiles_. x- _y_ chromosomes these days. my, my. how we adapt, but little stiles has grown up so nicely. look at those cheekbones. _hello_ , stiles.

stiles: peter, you’re upsetting derek.

his voice minutely calms me. peter sees this.

me: leave.

peter: when will the day come that you aren’t so uptight?

me: then _we_ are leaving.

i throw open the coat closet, and i’ve only just yanked out stiles’s jacket when my mother is there.

mom: peter.

peter: i just said hi. didn’t i, stiles?

stiles: if you discount the incredibly awkward flirting.

mom: kitchen, peter, now. you didn’t tell me you were coming.

she’s saying it as much to me as she is to peter.

peter: change of plans. news.

my mom stills. if i weren’t so concerned with keeping stiles away from peter, i’d want to know the big deal was.

mom: derek, you’re not leaving. you can go up to your room if you want, but you’re not leaving. i’d prefer if you came and danced though. . .

she has a fresh martini in her hand. there’s something in the potion that smells of a druid’s handiwork. i march up to my room and stiles follows. the minute he’s inside, i’m on him, tipping his jaw back, sliding my tongue in. there’s the faint trace of peter’s scent filmed across his skin, just from the minute of standing in his presence. i hate it and i hate it and i hate it.

what’s insane is that stiles lets me have it all. he collapses back on my bed. he spreads his legs. he says my name and runs his hands down the sides of my face as i crawl on top of him.

stiles: your family is down the hall. what if you mom knocks?

me: come here. i just need you.

i pull him against me, forcing myself to breathe normally again.

stiles: hasn’t your uncle always been an asshole?

me: we should probably go.

i don’t move. i think about the glint in my uncle’s eyes. there’s no way my mother can watch him all the time. she didn’t ban him from the pack after paige. family first. together we make up a single body. even if one limb is gangrene. even if the disease spreads to the other limbs. even if family betrays you.

i look at stiles, and i think: _how can i protect you_?

because i said i’d never be so stupid again. i said i’d never risk it, and yet, here i am holding stiles and i don’t want to let him go.

i’m going to have to let him go.

.

.

.

.

i start avoiding him. after monday’s lacrosse practice i make an excuse. i go home, and peter is there, sitting in the living room like nothing has changed. he’s got a new girlfriend that mom wants him to bring over. apparently, she’s a beta from an oregon pack. i can’t stand to listen to any more of it so i go up to my room. i pull my headphones on and i don’t even know what the song is—i’m not even listening—i just don’t want to hear any of them. peter pops open my door without knocking.

peter: where’s that sassy sixteen year old you’ve been molesting?

me: she’s in a grave, but you already forgot that, didn’t you?

peter: you know it made me sad too. we wanted her to be in the family. both of us. me and _you_.

me: your grief is inspiring. almost as much as your remorse.

peter: we are dangerous creatures. you shouldn’t forget that.

me: i never do.

peter: poor stiles.

me: better poor than dead.

peter: god you need therapy.

.

.

.

.

on tuesday i make up another excuse—calc test tomorrow morning.

stiles: okay.

but it’s not okay. the stutter of his heart is clear on that.

.

.

.

.

on wednesday, i’m in history and waffleton or whatever his name won’t stop kicking the back of sarah elbert’s chair. i can’t freaking handle it so i lob an eraser at the back of his head.

maybe too hard. he falls out of his chair.

kate: derek, machiavelli was last semester. detention. and warren, if you kick her chair again, you’re getting detention too.

.

.

finstock reads my detention slip. “miss argent” wrote out my misconduct with excessive detail.

finstock: come on. next time keep it contained, hale, and i know that kid is undersupplied on brain juice, but no need to make it worse. next time, maybe try the throw underhanded, okay? harder to see. . .

stiles tries to catch my eye, but i grab my bag and head for the hall.

when i walk into the history classroom, kate is wearing reading glasses. the top button of her blouse is unbuttoned. she has bare feet propped on a separate chair. the whole scene looks like the start of a teacher porno. the thing is, i know she knows this.

kate: an hour. i’m not going to allow you to police the humans in my classroom. next time get my attention.

me: you saw what was happening.

kate: i was finishing my slide, and you need to reign in your temper.

she’s good at not technically lying. grabbing a pen off the desk, she rolls it between her fingers. the corner of her mouth turns up.

kate: take a seat front row. you and i are due for a talk. so how’s your uncle being home?

she swings her legs over the front of her desk and crosses her ankles. i wonder if cora told allison. i wonder how closely the argents watch our movements. then again, my uncle has been in town for at least three days. he tends to parade his presence.

me: how do you think?

kate: stiles has looked sad the past two days. i know what you’re doing. even if i understand, it makes me sad. i told you i was sympathetic to young love.

sympathetic enough to kill for it.

me: it’s not love.

kate: oh, don’t be stupid. he’s mad about you. or at least, don’t trivialize.

me: it’s none of your business.

kate: at least be honest with him. you’d like to continue things with his kitten eyes, but the last time you tried a romantic relationship, your family arranged to have your girlfriend mauled.

me: yes, that will explain everything.

kate: i could help, if you’d let me. with a few insider tips, uncle peter could be . . . _vamoose_.

her tone is so playful, so easy, and yet i know how dead serious she is. on a moment to moment basis, kate doesn’t seem that bad. but then when you add the pieces together—they don’t fit. not in a sane way. i should be more careful. the problem is, i don’t care enough. kate talks to me like i’m an adult, like i’m her equal instead of her student.

me: why don’t you kill ennis?

kate huffs and sticks the pen tip in her mouth.

kate: alphas with fully formed packs are problematic, especially since he only bit her once and it was an under aged beta who finished the job. code. code. blah. wah. messy.

me: you don’t seem like the type of person who’d go for clean cut.

she outright laughs.

kate: you are so not what i expected.

me: and what was that?

kate: boring with bad teeth.

she shapes out fangs with her fingers.

me: you’ve never seen me shift.

kate: stop tempting me. you realize that i’m going to miss being your history teacher? mrs. nichols is back with you all in january. i’ll have to find something to do with my time. maybe, i’ll find your ennis. maybe, when i’m finished, i’ll send you a picture.

the problem is, i like the image.

me: you just told me it was hard.

kate bends a knee. it sends her skirt rather high up on her thigh. i can see the black strap of her garter.

kate: i’d find a way to get close. so close. do you doubt me?

me: i don’t know.

the garter strap is still there.

kate: you could help hunt if you wanted. it’d be unusual, but i think i’d enjoy your company.

me: stop talking like a bond chick.

kate laughs again. at least this time, her voice isn’t so faux sultry.

kate: if i’m a bond chick, where’s the trap?

she leans in close, but i lean away. out the window, the lacrosse team crests the hill in a pack. i see stiles, all knees, running next to scott.

me: you’re an argent. the trap looks pretty obvious.

kate: god, you—how can you not see it?

me: see what?

kate: you’re in love with him.

me: no, i’m not.

kate: i don’t need to be a werewolf to hear that lie.

me: even if i were, it doesn’t matter.

kate: it’s okay, i understand. you thought you were safe, locked in a cage of your own making. but now you’ve got stiles trapped inside with you. you don’t know how to get him out still whole.

there is nothing i hate more than pity. it’s even worse when it’s the truth.

me: i think my detention is over.

kate: break him gently.

.

.

i crawl in stiles’s window after midnight. the squeak of the iron against glass rouses him.

stiles: what—the?

me: it’s me. shhhh.

stiles blinks in the darkness for five long seconds. he’s only wearing boxers. his room is humid from the night’s rain. when i run my fingers across his brow, they come away damp. gunk crowds the corners of his eyes, which are large and black from hours of night. i’m telling myself _make this quick_ when he wraps his arms around my waist. he says my name, and it’s just all ruined.

stiles: i missed you.

i missed you too. soon, i am going to miss you even more.

i wedge my face between his neck and pillow. i don’t breathe.

i’m trembling, and stiles is pulling up on the pillow, digging out my face. then he’s wiping at my cheeks and his heart beat picks up. he’s completely awake now.

stiles: i’m not her. you know that, right?

i can’t look at him. i need to speak. i need to say the words but he smells like dream-sleep and kept secrets. it makes my chest heave and it makes me think of kate’s words, how the private little place that we created is what’s trapping him. there’s no way i can keep him there and also keep him safe.

me: i have to go—we can’t—

i can’t breathe. my heart is in my ears and my throat is choked with saliva. every word is sore and thick.

stiles: calm down. shhhhh.

me: we can’t see each—

stiles: shhhh.

me: we have to break up.

stiles freezes. i hear a small gasp.

stiles: i need you to look at me.

i can’t look at him. i’m shaking my head. drips are falling from the edge of my nose.

stiles: look at me.

i am such a coward.

stiles: fine.

i’m expecting him to shove me away but instead he shoves me down. his mouth is prying mine open. he tastes both too-sweet and rotten with fury. when his nail cuts into my cheek, i’m suddenly no longer afraid or upset because even if i deserve it (and i do deserve it) it’s not a guilt-thing. i like his anger. i like the bite of his rage on my tongue and the hard kneeing on my thighs. i like it when his hard dick stomps upon my soft one.

it gets better when he bites down on my neck. then i’m hard too.

stiles: get your jeans off.

i take them off. sheets are kicked to the side. he takes my dick in hand. he squeezes it at the same time he squeezes his own. we stare at each other and i think _you are beautiful_. i think, _at last,_ _you hate me_. i think, _take everything before i do._

stiles: flip over.

i hear the click of a cap and then cold lube is smeared between cheeks. stiles is on top of me. he’s grinding hard. his teeth are next to my ear. they snap, loud and clear. his cock jerks up the line of my ass.

stiles: i would have let you fuck me, you know.

stiles: i wanted you to.

stiles: you know what else i wanted? i wanted for you to take me to that stupid dance.

stiles: i wanted to make you happy.

stiles: i wanted us to exist in the real world.

his voice breaks. his hands squeeze my shoulders.

me: but i’m not real.

stiles flips me over. he’s still slick with lube but now his cock is grinding against mine. his teeth are a white gleam in the starlight. our breathing is a hoarse and broken scale. he’s looking at me so intensely, like he’s trying to see past skin and membrane, like he’s trying to see into me.

stiles: yes, you are.

he bites my lips. he claws his fingernails into my ass. he’s biting my neck like he wants to rip through the skin. i want him to—and i don’t. i look out the window, and over the roof top, the moon threatens _almost almost_. it’s then that i feel my control slip.

i’m trying to turn away. i’m trying to keep my eyes squeezed shut and my mouth closed when he pulls me back to him, no matter that my fingers have shifted into claws. i’m expecting revulsion. i’m expecting some sort of shock. but stiles shows no sign of surprise.

stiles: shhh.

a growl barks out of my chest. i don’t know what i do except that i don’t want to hurt him but i need to get away.

stiles: shhhh.

and then he’s kissing my eye lids. he’s rubbing his face against my fresh beard, and he’s nipping at my fanged mouth. i’m still gasping from shock when he picks up my hand and kisses my fingers just below the claws. he licks at the talons.

stiles: shhh.

this time, he presses a much softer kiss to my lips. i open my eyes and i know that the blue is already fading. the blood from the change has left a soft tang in my mouth. i’m shaking but stiles doesn’t stop with the kisses. he keeps kissing me, keeps canting our hips, keeps up with the soft _shhhs_ , and then i’m kissing him back. i’m rolling him over and pushing his hands over his head. i’m causing his mattress to creak. he comes with a soft cry and then i’m thrusting into his fist. unlike the past times, the wolf is in perfect sync. i’m so completely in control that i meet his eyes when i come.

stiles: i meant it when i said i wasn’t her.

me: when? when did you know?

stiles: i wasn’t sure until yesterday.

me: kate gave you the books.

stiles: more like your balls were too perfect.

i want to scream. i want to tell him everything. it only makes it harder.

me: you need to forget.

stiles: i was never good at pretending.

me: you need to forget me.

stiles: i love you, but it doesn’t make a difference does it?

he grows more perfect by the second. the pain worsens. i kiss him goodbye.

.

.

.

.

i go through school the next day, and i am underwater.

if i breathe, it hurts.

he is right over there. i do not look. not once.

his scent smokes in my nostrils.

kate: stop it. you’re making me want to volunteer for pet rescue.

.

.

when i get home, i’m half expecting for my whole family to be lying in wait, ready with an intervention. cora will have reported.

in fact, in the living room, the family is all present and accounted for, but it’s not on my behalf. peter is sitting on the couch. there’s a woman at his side, the beta from oregon. she’s blonde with a razor jaw and lips so plump you expect to see an air nozzle. her face is kind. i have no reason to hate her. it’s not her fault. i am sick with rage nevertheless.

mom: derek, i thought you had practice? this is rebecca. she’s from the oregon pack. she and peter had an announcement for us.

cora: they’re pregnant and getting married.

i don’t know what to say. i don’t know what to feel. i want to do something horrible. i want to deny peter this. he doesn’t deserve happiness. but rebecca is staring at me with wide, overly emotional eyes, like _she’s heard so much about me_. god, she looks ready to burst with powdered sugar. it’s not her fault. it’s peter’s.

i head right back out the front door.

i hear my name yelled. behind me excuses are oiled and dripping.

cora follows me.

cora: jesus, derek, what the fuck? can’t you pack it in for a second? you have stiles. peter is finally acting like an adult. move the fuck—

me: i don’t.

my whispered confession stops her. we’re standing at the end of the drive. the wind is back to freezing. i should have brought gloves or jerky. all the healing from the wind’s chapping makes me eat and eat.

cora: what?

me: i don’t have anyone. i thought that mom would keep peter away—but now that’s not—i don’t even have a family who gives a shit. all i have is—

nothing.

cora: what did you do?

what i had to.

me: leave me the fuck alone.

cora: did you hurt him? i didn’t even see stiles today, did you—?

me: i didn’t want him to die too.

cora: god, you are such a fucking—

she lunges at me.

i take the blow and then some. the dig of her claws and the fling of my blood barely even hurts.

cora: oh, fuck—you were supposed to—

i was supposed to fight back. i was supposed to do what she wanted me to do. i was supposed to pretend and pretend and play along until the farce felt real. i wipe the blood off my face. when i wheel to face her, my eyes are bright and blue and murderous. she cowers before me like the tiny child she is.

me: now you’re just like peter. you’re telling me what i’m supposed to do. how to live my life. i would listen to you, except that someday, when you’re “grown up,” i’ll have to forgive you for being so stupid. for thinking you know best. hear this, cora. in fact, tell it to the whole pack: i’m sick of being told what to feel.

i turn into the night.

.

.

i’m thirty meters off 145 when the truck screeches to the stop. i’m ready to dash back into the forest except there’s a blinding flash to my left. a dart hits me pointblank in the shoulder. the stink of wolfsbane makes my stomach heave. i fall forward and the next thing i know my palms are stinging from stripped skin. my nose is pressed against moss.

i am rolling around, but i manage to get my phone out of my pocket. i swipe and aim for the call button. my vision is too blurry to see who i’m calling. the ringer is going off when another dart hits me in the back.

i hear a familiar female laugh. the white spots in my eyes cover everything.

.

.

lips brush against my ear. a voice is whispering my name. sawdust tickles my nostrils and cold metal is heavy on my wrists. when i open my eyes, i see enormous panels of canvas. a fake sword lies next to a witch’s pointy hat. i am stripped down to my boxers and manacled to a long metal board. when i look up there’s a cardboard blade poised over my head. it’s stiles’s guillotine. i’m in the theater’s backstage. kate argent is standing across from me with a feather boa tossed over her shoulders and a leather tool belt strapped around her waist. i’m less surprised than i should be.

kate: now behave or you’ll get a nasty shock.

me: shock?

to demonstrate, she presses two metal tongs together—and my body convulses as the muscles tighten so hard that they’re burning and my brain is white hot. when it’s over, i slump. my teeth feel loose from grinding. the metal clamps on my hands heat and sear.

kate: that’s dc current with the constriction. ac current is more of a buzzing, i’m told. pretty boring, actually.

me: boring.

kate leans in close. she blows a kiss.

kate: i’d really hoped to do something far more fun, but you kept evading my traps.

me: fuck you.

kate: oh trust me, darling, i wasn’t opposed to the idea.

her eyes move up and down my body in a way that makes my empty stomach churn. i glare back at her.

me: this is breaking the code.

kate: you probably haven’t missed the part where. . . i don’t care.

me: they’ll know it was you.

kate: so today was a big day, you broke up with stiles. god, his face. and then your uncle brought his girlfriend home with a puppy in the oven. do you really think they’ll believe it was hunters that took you? i’m pretty sure they’re thinking you stormed off in a sulk.

i think about the phone call. i wonder if anyone picked up before i cut out. i’m trying to remember the last person i called. i haven’t called anyone in days.

me: if you’re going to kill me, kill me.

kate: think bigger.

me: kill me twice.

kate: as i was saying, this was supposed to be more fun, but you wouldn’t take the bait. you wouldn’t let me kill your uncle. you wouldn’t follow me home. i kept setting traps, but my little 007, you just keep sidestepping them. it was so annoying.

me: maybe you’re not a good bond girl.

in response, kate takes a cigarette out of a pack. she lights it with a smile and takes a long draw. between the black boa and the metal tong in her other hand, she looks like the grim reaper found a bride.

me: smoking in a public school, now you’ve really done it.

kate: oh, derek, you’ve got the wrong plot. i’ve been thwarted by the damsel, the darling with soft brown hair and enormous eyes. my wiles simply can’t compare to such raw, youthful beauty.

i realize what she’s saying.

me: leave stiles alone.

kate: stiles is fine. he’s a human and i _like_ him—god, most high schoolers are boring little ingrates. stiles, though, he’s got real intellectual curiosity. it’s a good thing you broke up with him. i needed to make sure he was out of your house tonight.

me: . . . out of my house.

kate: this has taken so much coordination. i wasn’t actually planning on teaching through the end of the year, but you see, i had to prove myself as a hunter. that poor girl deserved retribution for what your family did to her.

me: retribution.

kate: we needed to wait for the right moment. then we needed your clothes to cover the scent, can’t get close otherwise. lastly, we needed you to have another one of your tiffs. i needed you back your old self, before stiles, when you were miserable and temperamental.

me: to do what?

she takes another draw on her cigarette, before sucking in her cheeks, curling her tongue, and then puffing out a perfect smoke ring. she makes a sound like a sizzle.

kate: not a good way to go, but then again, _animals_.

for a second, i can only stare at her—i don’t believe her—but she’s smiling and i’m thinking about cora and her laugh. i think about my mother and her unbreakable strength. i think about aunt beatty’s nosiness and dad’s and laura’s bickering over politics.

the sound that emerges from my chest is an outright roar. i yank at my manacles, muscles bulging, wolf emerging, but with lazy ease, kate crosses the tongs again, and whole my body seizes. when the tremors stop, drool hangs off my chin, and kate wipes it with her fingers. the pain is too much for me to snap at her. she’s about to say more when her phone rings.

kate: i’ll be one moment.

she’s walking away as she swipes and answers.

kate: daddy, why are you calling instead of texting? my little werewolf thermometer has yet to sprout red eyes and extra fur.

the voice on the other line is mostly growl. i recognize it though, it’s allison’s grandfather. gerard argent, the one who blinded deucalion.

gerard: the den was empty.

kate: that’s not possible.

gerard says something, another bit of code, something about coyotes and st. bernards, but i’m utterly distracted by a new sound. softly, so very softly distant foot steps are creaking up the stairs to the effects booth. then i hear the other sound. an iphone has been left on.

♪: _love is great, love is fine.  out the box, out of line. the affliction of the feeling . . ._

i have never been so torn between relief and fear.

gerard: cut and run.

kate: fuck.

without looking at me, she throws down her phone and heads for what is definitely a semi-automatic.

♪: _cause i may be bad, but i'm perfectly good at it._

kate stops before picking up the gun. she’s wearing a pout.

kate: i’m sorry, but sometimes, doll, the bad girl wins.

♪: _sticks and stones may break my bones . . ._

kate has the gun raised when there’s a sudden cranking. every single light in the room turns on, the iphone is plugged into the audio system, and the music blares at full volume.

♪: _but chains and whips excite me_

kate wheels around, gun blindly aimed at the sound booth over the audience seating. she fires off a round and glass shatters in a line. i’d be terrified except that the heart beat i know only accelerates for a blip before returning to its steady beat.

♪: _na na na na_  
  
another cranking. a string snaps and an enormous water wheel swoops right for kate.

♪: _come on, come on_

she shoots that too, but then loses her balance as she has to dodge for the side. overhead, baskets overturn and scarlet petals flutter down in swirls.

♪: _come on_

the next cranking sends a river scene down, creating a wall between me and kate. i take the momentum and throw my weight to the side which succeeds in merely knocking the bench over.

♪: _i like it, like it_

the timing is perfect, because a trio of bullets pierce the canvas. the trajectory was perfectly aimed for my last position. the burn of wolfbane stinks.

she fires again. this time she hits one of the speakers, and there’s an awful buzzing. there is more cranking. gargoyles are dropping in peppered implosions.

in the distance, i hear a new sound. a howl. my pack is coming.

the sound is invigorating. i take every ounce of my strength and push. i think of stiles. i think of paige. i think, _i have to live_. the metal starts to bend.

kate also hears the howl. that’s when i hear the scramble of her steps. she rounds the edge of the canvas, and even when velvet curtains collapse over her like a cape, she isn’t stopped. eyes glowing red and green and orange in the shifting theater lights, she raises the gun, even as my left hand breaks free of the iron clasp.

the out-of-tune song is cut off. there’s a loud squeak from the shifting of a microphone.

stiles: every last bit of this has been recorded. if you hurt him, you won’t get away with it.

i wrench at the metal by my feet, if i can snap the whole bench . . .

kate: this is almost adorable.

she fires the gun.

a bullet pierces my thigh. another bounces off the metal bench. with my hand free, i push and i’m flying back. the third and fourth shots go wide. the whole bench finally snaps but i’m lying flat on my back, completely exposed to her.

the fifth shot, aimed for the upper right side of my chest, is met with an empty click.

the cartridge is empty. kate and i both realize it at the same time.

stiles: you should have run

staring into the stage lights, kate merely sneers. then she turns back to me with a cemented smile.

kate: so we have to do this the dirty way.

she scoops the metal tongs off the floor and connects them.

everything burns. the whole room is collapsing in on my me, and i think i’m screaming. i taste blood and smell the char of my own skin.

except then everything stops. the lights are out. there is no sound. no more pain. there is only the sound of my breathing and . . .

five other heartbeats. kate’s is small like a rabbit’s.

mom: you hurt my son.

kate’s curdled scream is stage worthy.

.

.

my last bit of consciousness is the memory of stiles snapping the string on the guillotine. as the aluminum hits my adam apple, he crawls on top of me. he flutters a crimson petal against my nose and then he presses his lips oh, so softy.

.

.

.

mom: keep eating.

i have eaten an entire roast. i have had three bowls of chicken and ramp soup. a plate of bacon, liver, and onions. three potatoes and however many carrots. the spot where the bullet hit is a pink mark that fades by the hour. i am fine. i say this.

me: i am fine.

my mother pets my brow. her eyes flash red.

mom: i’m reluctant to let you out of my sight, unless it’s to put my teeth into gerard argent’s throat.

me: you should do that.

mom: you really want to go, don’t you?

me: he wasn’t here when i woke up, and i should thank him. if he hadn’t been there . . .

mom: you’re sure about your control?

overhead the moon is full. it’s only going to get fuller. i feel the pull, and yet, it’s not like before. there’s no separation of human and wolf. i just want to find stiles. i need to find him.

mom: i guess i can tell you that cora ironed your shirt and suit.

me: cora doesn’t know how to iron.

mom: i adjusted the settings before she burned a hole in it. there are a few creases but she did her best. she felt bad about your fight.

me: so i can go?

mom: here. give him this.

she presses a still-warm chestnut into my hands and smiles.

.

.

enormous snowflakes hang from the ceiling. white and blue streamers decorate the backs of folding chairs. silver table skirts encircle the buffet of cheese crackers and chips and deli meats. girls are drinking diet coke from plastic martini cups, and the entire baseball team is trying to crowd the punch bowl as michaels, the pitcher, dumps a flask of vodka in. at the front of the room, finstock is on stage, making some sort of announcement. there is clapping.

on the other side of the gym, stiles is standing next to scott and allison. cora and boyd and erica are sitting at their table. stiles is wearing a black shirt that actually fits. he’s rolling his eyes at whatever finstock is saying. lydia martin is waving like a british royal.

i’m twenty feet away when i hear finstock say _my_ name. everyone turns to look at me. suddenly greenberg’s tequila breath is in my face with a hug and congratulations. it’s not just him. sarah elbert beams at me. that warrington kid is pretending we’re friends. a few guys from the basketball team clap my back. finstock is pointing at me from the stage while harris has his arms crossed.

my instinct is to duck and hide, but i came here for a reason.

i dodge the drunk arms of mary williams, and then i’m crossing the room.

stiles rounds the table. he looks . . . hesitant. we’re three feet apart when i hold out the chestnut. he is looking down at it, like he doesn’t know what to think, when lydia martin comes charging up.

lydia: earth to derek hale. glad you finally decided to show up. do you not hear the music? winter court king and queen. we’re supposed to be dancing.

me: nope. That is definitely not what i’m supposed to be doing right now.

i have to step around her, but then stiles's hands slide into mine. his face is silver-flecked from the disco ball. his lips are crystal pink. his smile is this anxious, beautiful thing. everyone in this school has no idea, but they will.

i love him. it’s not a secret.

i kiss him long and slow and deep and possibly forever.


	2. (Story with Conventional Formatting)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So this is the same story but with normal formatting. For my subscribers, sorry to annoy those of you who've already read this or decided you didn't want to read this... 
> 
> Anyway, I got feedback from a lot of people that they didn't like the formatting the first time 'round. Others loved it, though honestly, I wasn't too wild about how it looked on Ao3 with wider screens, and anyway, there were some other changes I wanted to make, so here's an updated, normally punctuated and formatted version of the story for those of you who are interested.

The forest is saran-wrapped with ice, the unbroken slopes blistering in glass creek beds. My basketball is the only spot of color. Hanging from an oak branch, it stands as a reminder: control. After the harvest moon, when I lost it—when I went after Peter and my mother had to cow me with her red eyes—I’m supposed to be "getting better." Whatever that means. My fists clench on the crosse and when I lunge forward and sling, the lacrosse ball goes wide.

I have my arm cocked for another shot when I catch the drift of the beat through the trees: old school rap. In the city, it'd be normal, but out here in my family's woods, I'm wondering what sort of red neck poacher listens to rap? But then the scent crests with the breeze, and I know. Not middle aged. Not a poacher. _Stilinski_.

Cora sent him.

My sister doesn't understand the concept of proportionate response.

I fork the shot with double force so that it rattles and ricochets inside the jerry-built goal, but it distracts me for only a moment, because I can hear Stilinski crunching across the snow drifts, and the buzz from his headphones is clearer and clearer.

♪: _I asked her her name, she said blah-blah-blah._

When he’s in my sights, it’s to see that he’s dancing like no one is watching. And I probably shouldn’t be watching but I can’t look away as Stiles slips on ice, two seconds from a concussion, and yet his arm is corkscrewing as he raps along with Biz Markie.

♪: _She had 9/10 pants and a very big bra._

Stiles is doing things with his hands that would cause most women to aim for his groin.

♪: _I said, "Yo, who was that?" "Oh, he's just a friend."_

My second hand embarrassment is so strong that I find myself looking at the lacrosse ball in my palm. Stilinski’s hips have begun to jackhammer. It’s like bad break dancing. Or worse, Gangnam style.

♪: _Oh, snap! Guess what I saw? A fella tongue-kissin' my girl in the mouth._

Stiles is headed up the hill. He still hasn’t seen me. It occurs to me that I could hide. Only, then the beat for the next song begins. That’s . . . Rihanna.

♪: _Na na na na. Come on._

That’s—"S&M."

I throw the ball in desperation. It hits the fir branch two feet over Stiles’s head. With a squawk his arms fly up. He twists on a lone heel before capsizing into a snow bank.

For a minute, Stiles just lies there, a peaceful snow angel. His iPhone continues to play.

♪: _Sticks and stones may break my bones. But chains and whips excite me._

But then, one elbow comes up and then another. Seething, he arises with a crystal pelt. He searches about and upon spying the offending lacrosse ball, his eyes triangulate the ball’s path until they seize upon the hilltop, until they seize upon me. And it’s a little funny when Stiles plucks his headphones out his ears one at a time to say, "So, dumbass, _normal people_ say ‘Hi.’" His cheeks and lips are holly red. Slurry darkens the front fringe of his hair. His caramel eyes melt despite their fire.

"Normal people don't street dance in the middle of the forest," I counter.

"I thought I was _alone,_ and who doesn’t dance when they’re alone?"

Laura would answer: _stoic, depressed white boys_. Thank god she’s not here. "It’s not safe for you to be alone out here."

"Score. Cora just won a buck off Laura. She said you would say that."

If only I were an only child. "Go away."

"Nope. Cora said I have to bring you back. Boyd and Isaac were looking for you." His heart skips— _liar._

"I’m busy practicing."

For the first time, Stiles seems to take in the scene: basketball effigy, lacrosse equipment, the fallen branches and sticks that thatch the snow around me, and he asks, "Uh and why’d you murder that basketball and why are you holding a lacrosse stick? You’re not on the lacrosse team. You shoot hoops. You’re like Harris’s golden thumb."

It’s none of his business. I think about telling him this, but I’m suddenly tired in a way that is not remotely physical. I pick up my things and start down the hill. He’s still snow silted and blinking at me when I brush past him.

.

.

It is Cora’s annual Christmas sleepover. It’s always weird. Cora has the motliest crew of friends. It’s like someone shook names out of the high school cafeteria hat, and Cora indiscriminately accepted the lot. There is Lydia who is wearing a faux fur coat, leather pants, and a Santa hat—no, I don't understand. Isaac and Boyd are skulking in the corner, expressions slightly poisoned. Allison Argent is talking to Erica about sightseeing in Oregon. Jackson Whitmore (they're both wrestlers, but why, Cora, why?) is talking shit to Scott McCall about lacrosse. Lastly, there’s Cora who strides up to me holding a pan of . . . chestnuts.

"No," I say.

Cora crosses her arms. "It’s for the tree. You love the tree. You love chestnuts."

But I look at the chestnuts and I don't care, though she’s not wrong. I used to love them. I used to devour my own four gallon bucket, but not anymore. Last year I imagined kissing Paige underneath that tree. I step back and say, "I’m going up to my room."

"No, you’re not." Laura is wearing her intervention face. She’s also blocking my path up the stairs.

"Back off."

When her response is not to argue but to smile sympathetically, I know my sister has drawn a line in the sand _for Derek’s own good_. "Look, while Mom and Dad and Aunt Beatty are out of town, I’m in charge."

My parents are up north on "pack business." I've heard them whispering about it. They’re worried about hunters, as if I couldn’t hear their bickering. I’m pretty sure they’re also visiting Peter. "Or not," I say.

"Derek, you’ve been avoiding everything, and you can’t avoid everything."

I arch a brow. I can damn well try.

"Choose," Laura insists. "It’s this or going with Aunt Beatty to Santa town when she gets back on Saturday."

Family sucks. After flipping her off, I head over to where Isaac and Boyd are sitting.

.

.

It’s forty degrees outside so everyone is bundled in beanies and coats and thick stockings on the benches that surround the bonfire. Beneath the giant tree, the air tastes of cinnamon cider and vodka and mint hot chocolate. Cora’s cheeks are flushed with excitement as she explains our family tradition. "So these are chestnuts, they pop open in threes from burs from our chestnut tree, which is one of the last of its kind. It used to be that American chestnut trees made up twenty percent of the trees in forests in North America, but then an Asian chestnut fungus went on a rampage in the early twentieth century. The blight killed nearly all of them. Ours is one of the final few tall ones left."

Stiles, with a falsely deep voice, proclaims, "But to ward off the blight, the tree demands payment."

"In kisses!" Allison finishes. (She is tipsy and Scott is open-mouthed staring at her.) What they’re saying is more or less true. Technically, some free-loving, tree-hugging druid cast the spell on behalf of our family. My mom and dad typically use it as an excuse for shameless behavior. "Collecting chestnuts" might as well be code in my house.

Cora continues, "So this is how the game works. Everyone pokes a hole in a chestnut, and they go on one of the cast iron pans. Whoever’s pops first is the kisser. Second is the person kissed, and then everyone eats chestnuts!"

"You’d kiss your brother?" Scott asks.

Cora throws a chestnut at him—which bounces off Scott’s knee. "On the _cheek_. Jesus."

Isaac asks, "So if we don’t want to…?" He is pointedly not looking at anyone.

"The kisser controls the kiss." Cora nods. "It can be just a peck. Um and nothing overly aggressive—and by that I mean tongue—unless invited."

"I don’t know about the rest of you," Lydia drawls, "but I think I’m hungry for chestnuts." For some reason, she is smiling brightly—at _me_. Stiles and Jackson are frowning when there is nothing to frown about.

"Lydia," Cora snaps, "stop flirting. Everyone ready?"

We put our chestnuts on the pan. The heats envelopes them. Inside the meat roasts, and the _smell_. Chestnuts have one of those aromas that define other aromas, like coffee or bacon or roses. It’s lantern fire and Christmas and thick blankets rolled into a rich kernel. The happy memories splice with the bitter and I can’t look anyone in the eye.

I shouldn't be surprised when Cora’s is the first to pop. Erica’s is the second. So the next thing I know my little sister is making her way over to a blushing Erica, and it finally dawns on me what is about to happen.

I slam my eyes shut. For good measure, I shove my fingers in my ears, too. That is, until there’s a burst of laughter, and I briefly squint. Cora has her tongue shoved down Erica’s throat. At my side, Boyd looks _way_ too into it so I elbow him. Nevertheless, when it’s over, there’s no ignoring how Erica now has leaves in her hair and dirt on her flannel cuffs. Since I can’t bleach my brain, I focus every ounce of my attention on shelling my chestnut. You have to peel them while they’re hot. I just let my fingers burn and heal.

Then it’s Lydia’s pop. The second, though, is…

Both Stiles’s and _mine_ pop at once—and even with werewolf enhanced vision, there’s no telling which one cracked first.

"What’s the rule for that?" Scott asks.

"Kiss them both!" Erica declares.

Shrugging like it’s nothing, Lydia bypasses Stiles to sit on my knee. Her fingers slide under my jaw. She leans in close and drunk-whispers, "Let me play."

Lydia is pretty. Objectively most people would say she’s prettier than Paige. Nicer skin. Brighter hair. Probably even smarter, if rumors are to be believed. None of this matters, but on the other side of the table Cora is looking at me with worry. She— _they_ —never believe me when I say I’m fine, so instead, I look Lydia in the eyes with challenge. I ask, "What’s the game?"

"This." She is smiling through her teeth and I’m rolling my eyes even as her mouth rocks into mine. Slippery gloss (vanilla bean, a tingle of mint) solicits my lips to open up. It’s just a kiss. It’s not the same. She doesn't taste the same. _Cora, how could you think this would ever affect me?_ I let Lydia in, and it’s not terrible. Vodka and chocolate. It’s clear that she knows what she’s doing as her tongue touches mine with a quick curl—but come on, my sister is here. Lydia’s ex-boyfriend is here. Stiles and his unrequited puppy love is here.

After a sloppy minute, I shove Lydia off, but her smile is victorious as she corrects the gloss along her bottom lip. Then it’s Stiles’s turn and his face is white, lip quivering.

Lydia pecks a kiss on his nose.

Everyone knows that Stiles has a crush on her. Admittedly, that might be why she’s not encouraging it, but publicly dissing someone in front of their friends….

She didn’t have to kiss me like that. She could have kissed him first. She didn’t.

With the next batch, Isaac gives Jackson a peck on the cheek.

I am still chewing on that round’s chestnut when the next pops. It’s Stiles’s. The second one is mine.

Stiles takes a slug of the bottle in his hand. For a second, he looks at Lydia. I’m expecting a bitter quip, scissored sarcasm. What I don’t expect, however, is for Stiles to charge. At my toes, he drops—just fucking drops—in a crunch of leaves. Fingers grab right and left tips of my collar. I am yanked.

People don’t yank me. It’s not something that happens.

My chestnut goes down the wrong pipe. Also, Stiles bites me. It’s not intentional (I can tell), but his teeth clamp down hard on my bottom lip and I can't breathe—the chestnut—and Boyd decides this is a good moment to get off the bench so we topple backwards. Tongue slides up my cheek, and there is saliva making contact with my eyeball.

I am trying to lift up, hacking my heart out. Stiles is straddling me. I taste my own blood from the clash of teeth. I manage to turn to the side to cough out the nut.

When I turn back, Stiles’s eyes are twin clock faces. They look as if they wish to turn back time. "Uh, didn't mean for that to..... Um. Oh god."

I think I nod. As I wipe at my stinging my eye, the laughter erupts.

Scott hiccups out, "Does—Hale—still—" He chokes. "—still need the Hah-Heimlich?"

"I thought we said no uninvited force?" Isaac mumbles.

"Sorry I got off the bench." (Boyd doesn't look remotely sorry)

Erica, a bit tipsy, pats the seat next to her looking at Stiles with deep empathy. Stiles, with lips still wet, takes the spot, laughing a little too high. Scott comes over, still cracking himself up, and plops down next to his friend. Stiles darts a glance at Lydia. She doesn't see because she’s frowning at me with way too much calculation. Meanwhile, Stiles avoids my gaze as he takes a rather large gulp of spiked cider.

The rest of the night is calmer. Scott looks ready to wet himself as he presses a close-mouthed kiss on Allison. I kiss Isaac’s cheek and he blushes. Jackson attempts to make out with Cora—who punches him. Erica lays one on a shocked and happy Boyd.

At least the tree is satisfied.

.

.

.

.

I have second lunch in the cafeteria. Most of my friends graduated last year, and the ones that are in my year, I tend to avoid these days. Besides, Boyd is decent company—well, normally. Today, he is hogging his second pudding cup. And he is _chatty._

"So yeah, Erica is cool, right?" Boyd leans forward, crossing and uncrossing his fingers.

"Based on that kiss, I’d say she likes you."

"I don't know if I want to use that standard." Boyd grins. "Cora definitely got more action."

Boyd deserves pain from the ninth layer of hell—especially when he dodges my attempt to deck him, all smiles.

Then he adds, "And if Stilinski’s was anything to go by . . ."

I grimace but the memory causes me to spare a glance toward Stiles’s usual spot. He sits with Scott and their friends. Today, however, Scott is not so mysteriously absent (considering that Allison is also missing), so Stiles is eating with a single friend. I’m about to turn back to my lunch when there’s an outbreak of laughter from Jackson’s table. I catch my name in his speech. "So Stilinki’s pops and Hale’s is second and—"

Lydia is sitting next to Jackson. She’s the sole person at the table who is not smiling with anticipation. Still, when Jackson bends down to fake-bite her—then lick up her cheek—she plays along, even going so far as to pound her chest and fake a choke.

Not just their table but all of the surrounding tables burst into laughter. Jackson looks triumphant and Lydia looks shut off as she wipes Jackson’s saliva off her cheek and takes out a compact to survey the damage to her makeup. Everyone is casting glances at Stiles.

A few people look my way. I’m used to it. They've been casting glances since _she_ died. This time, the smiles are different, though. Some of their smiles are wink-wink, like we’re on the same side. We are not on the same side. We aren't even the same species. Between my clenched teeth and the way my fork starts to squeal in my grip, it’s like the wind has picked up in the room, because all the gazes turn away at once.

Regardless, this is the moment when Stiles is supposed to flip Jackson the bird. He’s supposed to say and _what about when Cora punched you?_ Or something more clever. Stiles always has a barb on the tip of his tongue. Except this time his face pales. His friend on the other side of the table reaches out to grab his hand, but Stiles snatches it away. Fucking Harrington blows a kiss at Stiles and calls, "Safest from this distance, right, Stilinski?" Stiles’s lips form a line, and I can tell he’s trying to hold it in. That doesn't happen. After a tight word to his friend, he grabs his bag and books it out of the cafeteria.

For some reason, this gets me more than anything else. Because you never run from predators. Especially not from the likes of Whitmore.

"Calm down, man," Boyd orders. "You know your little sister is going to eviscerate Jackson. Cora would never have invited him if she thought he would pull this shit. Especially over a stupid kissing game."

It’s the edge to his voice that makes me realize that I have bent my fork into a _u_ -shape. It takes me a moment longer to realize how _angry_ I am. I have been angry. At Ennis. At my stupid uncle who fled like a coward rather than face me—but that anger has gone nowhere. I can’t demand retribution against an alpha for a bite that was supposed to work. I can’t blame my uncle for trying to give me what I wanted deep down. The only person I can blame is myself. Except now there is Jackson. And I hate him. I hate him so so much and that’s . . . not a bad feeling.

"Boyd," I command, "give me your Snack Pack."

He shields the pudding cup protectively, before his mouth twists in a knowing grin. "Only if you’re gonna do what I think you’re gonna do."

"Give me the damn cup."

Boyd hands over the cup. I grab a table knife, but I don’t use it as I lower the cup under the table. Instead I unleash my claws, piercing the plastic container over and over again until it’s mesh and oozing through the punctures. On the other side of the cafeteria, I can smell Jackson. I hear the squeak of his Sperry’s, his self-absorbed laugh. I throw the plastic cup over my shoulder.

There’s a splat: a screech splits the lunch room.

Normally so stoic, Boyd is biting his bottom lip and trembling so hard, I think he might draw blood. Under the table he offers his fist up for a bump. "Fuck," he laughs. "You don’t have to pay me back for that one."

"Wasn't planning on it."

The smell of chocolate and milk is bright with the new laughter in the air. Jackson is furiously scanning the room. I hear the grit of his jaw as he wipes the chocolate off his face. When his gaze alights on our table, Boyd smiles like a lion. "Derek, come on, look at him. He knows it was you. Who else has that aim?"

I shake my head and lean back, crossing my arms over my head. "No need. I know what a shit head looks like."

.

.

Our AP history professor is on maternity leave. Still, there’s no way to prepare yourself when the teacher who walks into the room has highway legs, hair down to her ass, and a smile that tingles right up your jean’s zipper. What’s especially disorienting is that she’s Allison’s aunt. Her name is Kate _Argent._

Allison has no clue about the whole werewolf thing. Her family has kept her in the dark even while training her to be an expert with a crossbow. The most her parents do is make noise about her being friends with Cora, but my mom met with Allison’s dad and they talked about rules and all of that crap. Still Allison’s aunt isn’t exactly sweet. After class she conspicuously asks me to stay behind, eliciting whistles from some of the guys.

"You don’t have a problem with me being your teacher, do you?" She’s bent forward over her desk. Her shirt is a v-neck. It’s not low cut unless she’s standing, well, bent forward like she is. I jerk my eyes back to her shoulder, but I can tell she’s smiling.

"Are you planning to kill me?"

"Only if you’re very very bad."

I killed the girl I loved. I suppose that counts.

"I know your eyes are blue. Your mom spoke with my brother about it. It’s okay. I understand. It’s horrible what your uncle did—what Ennis did. Poor Paige. Poor you, already caught up in tragic young love."

"I have to go to the gym."

"Good idea." She taps her pen just beneath her collar bone. "Burn off all that energy."

.

.

Stiles is not in gym the next hour. He’s supposed to be. It’s the one class I have with him. I find McCall, back against his locker and hearts in his eyes. He’s so obsessed with his new girlfriend that he doesn't have a clue about his best friend. It angers me in a way that it shouldn't. "Where’s Stiles?" I demand.

"He’ll be here soon. He has this class." McCall dopily smiles at me. I do not punch him.

"You are the worst friend." Scott only slightly frowns as I march over to Finstock and make up some excuse about having left my homework in my last class.

"Go, go, go." Finstock waves me off. "I don't care what you do as long as you’re at lacrosse practice next week. Since you’re dumping basketball, Harris hates me so much. It makes faculty lunches worth going to. Now go, Hale, before I have to pretend I’m . . . fair." He signs my hall pass and waves me away.

Sniffing out Stiles in a high school full of smells takes my entire concentration. I end up following his trail from the cafeteria to the school’s auditorium, where I take the steps up the stage and through the curtains until Stiles’s scent suddenly thickens. Stepping around an enormous fake boulder, I find Stiles sitting on a fake guillotine. I’d forgotten that the school is doing a production of _The Scarlet Pimpernel._

Upon seeing me, he pulls the string. The foil crescent plummets over his neck, and Stiles groans, "Leave me to my misery. Or did you come to personally shame me?"

"I came to see if you were okay. Jackson is an asshole."

Stiles doesn't react.

I ask, "Are you okay?"

"Uh, yesterday was bad enough with the whole having the girl of my dreams watch me make a fool out of myself as I chomped on your lip—still sorry about that by the way, dude, but then today her douche bag ex-boyfriend had his little small dick pageant in the cafeteria so as to ensure that _no one will ever want to kiss me or date me or anything_ —so that basically leaves me with high school celibacy unless I can find someone outside of Beacon Hills who is drunk and has never heard of me, or I guess I can graduate a year early and attempt to 'remake myself' in college. All awesome choices."

"It’s not a big deal. It’s just kissing." The act itself doesn't mean much. It’s the person.

"Please stop trying to minimize my pain. It actually makes it more painful, especially coming from the person who causes most of the girls in the school—and a good percentage of the boys if they’d own to it—to start inching down their undergarments when you breeze by with your fuck-everything ‘tude on your perfect face."

I am miserable. There is nothing about that that is attractive to sane people. "No one is good when they first do it. Spit goes everywhere. You have to figure out what the other person likes." The words sound false. My speech sounds like something people say because they have to fill in the silence.

"Great advice, dude. I’ll be sure to put it to use when I’m thirty."

 _There_ is the sarcasm that I have missed. I sit down on the edge of the fake guillotine and stare at Stiles’s drawn face. He has always been weirdly pretty. He’d be better looking if he lost the stupid hair (Cora keeps telling him this). Regardless, I remember him when his mom died. He was so wrecked and yet I remember him hugging his dad and saying _I love you_ with all his might, like it could save both of them. I think, maybe, it did. Suddenly, I feel like I have to fix this, and that’s when I realize what I need to do. "Sit up," I command.

"Why?"

"I’m going to teach you."

"Teach me what?"

"How to kiss. Open your mouth."

Stiles doesn’t open his mouth so much as gape. "You just said—um, those words strung together—crap—uh, do you even like boys?"

"I’m about two seconds from changing my mind."

Stiles slowly raises the guillotine’s slat off his neck before scooting up. "Okay, okay, just if there are boners—you can’t punch me. That is a rule."

"Close your eyes."

"Right. Closing them. Is this really happening? You aren't filming this to further humiliate me, are you? You should know, I did backstage tech last year. I know where all the buttons are." He sneaks another peak. I press my finger against his misbehaving eyelid to pull the blind back down.

"Relax your jaw, your mouth." I push his knee off the bench, so that it straightens and I can get closer. Stiles’s breaths are sharp. His eyelashes flicker like he’s fighting the urge to peek with all his might. When I cup the sides of his face, he involuntarily smiles. "I said _relax."_

In place of the smile I get a small, frustrated huff. This is when I lean in to press my lips against his.

He immediately tries to kiss me back. I pull away.

"Not yet," I say. "Just stay relaxed. I want you to know how it’s supposed to feel." At Stiles's nod, I start with the corners. The arrow feathers at the ends. I follow the curve of his bottom lip before tasting the top chevron. Stiles makes a soft gasp when I hold his jaw and lock his upper lip. I pull away and explain, "That’s lip-locking. If you immediately go for the tongue, most people won't be ready for it. So, I kissed your top lip. Now kiss my bottom."

Stiles’s eyes are squeezed shut, but he’s nodding. He leans in and pushes my hands away so he can hold my face steady. With the trembling of his balmy fingertips, the kiss to my cheek is unexpected, but more surprising is Stiles dragging his lips across my skin, tip-toeing in the crease of my chin before finally following my instructions and locking us in a press, and I’m thinking _fast learner_ when he sucks ever so slightly.

With another gasp he switches for the top. I let him. I keep my lips parted and am gifted with more enthusiastic presses and nips.

Somehow our knees are now pressed hard together. Breathless, I pull back. "That’s good. It’s good."

Stiles’s eyes are over-dilated in the theater’s shadows. He meets mine for a single, shy second before his gaze settles back on my lips. His panting breath drifts, puffs of cloud, into the drizzle of my own. "What next?"

"Same as before. Relax. I’m going to—"

"Tongue is okay. A-okay. Don’t mind at all."

I thumb his nose. This close, he laughs and dips his head into my shoulder. I don’t think he even realizes how blatantly he’s flirting. The brush of his breath digs wells into the pores of my neck. I have to fight off a tremor as I scratch my fingers into his hair, pulling him up so that I can show him.

His lips are tight are all over again. I have to kiss him open and whisper _relax_ then _relax more_ until he lets me fully have control. He keeps trying to take it back—probably out of nerves—but I keep chanting the words over and over, and when I scratch my nails across his scalp (and he gasps because he’s always gasping), I flick my tongue into the dark. There is a pop of salt and sugar before immediately, Stiles’s tongue is meeting my own with a woolly curlicue.

Snorting, I pull back. "Not _yet."_

"You taste like meat." His eyes say he didn't actually mean to say that.

"I had leftover roast for lunch."

"I like roast."

"Okay."

"What do I taste like?

My first thought is stress but . . . "One second." I thumb open his mouth. I draw us back together with force. Stiles makes a choked sound but doesn’t draw away as I map out his cheeks, his teeth, and the valley of his tongue. Then I draw back, confident in my assessment. "Ketchup and curly fries and a coke. Have you heard of protein?"

"You saw what I ate at lunch.

I didn't pay the slightest bit of attention. "Maybe."

Stiles doesn't look sad anymore. I’m not surprised when he licks his bottom lip. "Can I?"

"Don’t worry if there’s drool. Also don’t be afraid to swallow."

With a wrinkled nose, he laughs, and then Stiles closes his eyes, leans in, and begins. He imitates my actions with near-precision, only with his fingernails sprawled on the back of my neck instead of my hair. He’s kissing me with sharp breaths, with an up-and-down bob. There is, as predicted, too much spit.

I tilt him up, swipe my tongue, and when the swell is heavy at the back of my throat, I drink it down. Stiles uses the angle to push harder, to thrust his tongue and suddenly his knees are wrapping over mine. His hand is sliding down my back and—and it’s not like Paige—but it is, because my every instinct is to break for his neck. To slide my fingers along the inside of his thigh. To thrust in my fingers and drag his smell out into the center of the room.

Which is how I started to want—

It’s how I started to fall—

I break away, gasping. Stiles falls back, and upon realizing he’s more or less crawled into my lap, he makes a hoarse whimper, scrambling back, arms flailing.

Five long seconds pass. When I look up, Stiles has his arms crossed, his legs crossed, pretty much his whole body crossed. "We had a rule."

It takes me a minute to figure out what he’s talking about. Accidental boners. "It’s not that. I don’t care about that. I just—I haven’t done this since—I need to go."

Stiles blinks at me. His lips are strawberry. His chin is scratched pink. "Cora told me about—about how you found her right before she—" He bites his own bruised lip. For once, I don’t want to hit a person for "offering their condolences." It’s like before when I gave him the canned speech. I was trying. Now he’s trying. Just there’s nothing words can do.

"So that is how you kiss," I conclude.

"Got it."

.

.

The rest of the day my body is thrumming. I notice things I haven’t noticed in months. Isaac’s coat smells like the graveyard. Harris has a stiffy the entirety of our history class. It’s why he never leaves the podium and snaps at all the wrong answers. Cora smells that Stiles is covered in my scent and doesn't say a damn word, but maybe that’s because her internal compass is boiling every time it points Jackson’s direction.

After school, I do not go home and up the stairs to my bedroom where I slide into my bed and pull down my shorts. I do not chug and yank or press my wet lips into the opposite palm as all lines blur and I can’t focus my vision. I do not end up with gummy stick on my fingers and a load of laundry on my to-do list.

Or even if I do . . . It’s not while thinking of a hot little arrowhead in my mouth or fingernails at the back of my neck—because Paige used to kiss me like she was tattling – _like you should know better but I’ll let you get away with it this once_ – she ran her hands down my back with easy swirls like the trapezoid shape was a musical instrument she could weave into her own harmony.

Just, she never used her nails like that.

Later, when my mom asks me about Kate, I shrug it off and tell her it’s nothing to worry about.

\- - -

I think—I’m not 100% sure—but after the pudding cup story gets around the school, Cora’s private evisceration of Jackson, and dare I say, the kissing lesson, Stiles seems to be doing okay. Also, Jackson’s jokes suck.

"Greenberg, watch out for Stilinski here. He might eat you."

"Nothing to worry about while Whitmore is a walking Snack Pack."

"I’ll make you take my pudding, you little—"

This is when Danny shoves his best friend. "Nobody is threatening anybody with _pudding_. Jesus, Jackson." Danny casts a glance at me and shakes his head in disbelief. Not for the first time, I wonder why he is friends with Jackson of all people.

Today is the first day of our pre-season lacrosse practice. The weather is cold, wet, and miserable. Coach is already blowing his whistle like it’s a cattle prod. "Okay," Finstock begins, "Hale is automatically captain because it will make you babies whine, but more importantly it will make Harris lose his hair faster than me. The rest of you incompetents are expected to prove yourselves unworthy of my insults. Now, run!" He blows the whistle.

The pack of teenage boys takes off, a cacophony of strong and stuttered heartbeats combining with the pea soup stink carried out from the locker room. I keep pace next to Boyd. Part of me (the wolf) wants to leap out of my skin and race. Part of me wants to stop dead and press my forehead into the dirt and dig my own hole. It’s my mother’s voice in the back of my head saying _there’s no difference between the wolf and the boy_ that keeps my knees rising in rhythm. What’s annoying is that after Boyd and me, Jackson is definitely the fastest. At the back of the pack, I can’t not notice that Stiles is encouraging Scott along. Not a good start.

When we actually break into teams to scrimmage, it gets even worse. Danny makes a pass to Stiles, and somehow Stiles ends up clapping Greenberg in his face. Scott has to run off the field to get his inhaler. Jackson makes a goal on Isaac, and while I can tackle Jackson to my heart’s content, there’s no reason he shouldn’t be on the team (he’s the best after me and Boyd), just like there’s no way I can enchant coordination into my sister’s friends.

Practice ends. Jackson looks cocksure, and Finstock keeps me afterwards, talking strategy. He won’t stop pounding me on the back like his fist is a gavel or maybe my back is his dinner bell. "Good team this year. Damn good team." Finstock is still staring at me, hand in a clenched, victorious fist and smiling.

"Uh, Coach?

Finstock rubs at the top of his head. "Right, go get dressed, showered, whatever—damn good team."

I walk into the locker room, and Boyd is already dressed. I shuck off my shirt, grab my towel, and head for the showers just in time to see Stiles walk out with only a towel for cover. For some reason I’m looking at his clenched fingers, at the jagged edge of his bitten-off nails. I’m realizing it’s been a week, and I’ve thought about that dark moment in the theater more times than I can count.

"Oh, hey," he blusters. "You, uh, did well. At practice."

He’s flushed but that’s probably because he is just out of the heat of the shower. I switch my focus to the wall. I don’t know what to say but I feel like I should say something. "You too," I manage.

Stiles snorts, shaking his head. "And by that, you mean I’ll be joining Greenberg on the bench."

"You just need pr—" I cannot finish that sentence. Instead I swallow and clench my fingers around the knot of my towel. When Stiles’s mouth twists like he’s about to crack a joke, I brush past him, yanking open a stall’s curtain. I don't look back. I strip off my towel and jerk on the water and do not wonder why I am being such an idiot.

.

.

.

.

Kate Agent holds me after history class again. "Your last paper was good. You deserved that A."

I shrug. We’re covering Tudor England. I had a lot to say about Queen Elizabeth. Mostly that after watching all that bullshit with her family when she was young, she was smart for being permanently single.

"You know that my specialty is medieval mythology."

"You’re an Argent."

"As part of my thesis research, I documented accounts of those who had received the bite. There aren't many but I can tell you this: with teenagers, especially young virgins, the bite worked ninety-nine times out of one hundred. Except sometimes."

"What are you talking about?"

"If an alpha bites indiscriminately, for adding to the pack, it almost always works, but then there were the occasions when it didn't work…"

"Say it if you’re going to."

"When there was a love match without love. It’s very tragic. So you see, it wasn't your fault, sweetheart."

"Don’t call me sweetheart."

"Maybe, she didn't actually love you."

Paige had said, " _I think I knew. I've seen things in this town before. Things no one could explain. Then there’s the way that you talk. How you say things like how you’d catch a scent. And I know you can hear things. Things that no one else can hear. I knew._ I’d asked her: _And you still liked me?_ She’d said: _I loved you._ Paige’s heartbeat was steadier than Kate’s, despite the dots of tar black on her dying lips. "Shut up."

"It’s okay. I thought I loved someone once. He didn't love me back. I understand."

"Did he die?

"He was a hunter. Events went south on one our trips. I had to kill him."

"That’s. . ." Nothing like what I went through. I’m assuming he got bitten. Hunters are insane. He probably asked Kate to push the knife in. Then again, the bite could have gone wrong. Like Paige.

"A long story. I was seventeen when it happened. People told me I was too young to know better, but I knew that if I’d been paying attention when I was supposed to be paying attention, there was a chance I could have saved him. Better yet, if I’d told him not to go—maybe I could have stopped it all together. I have replayed every scenario in my head a thousand times. You know what I learned?"

"No, but I bet you’re going to tell me."

"Sometimes life bites you in the ass. You can’t control everything."

"I love platitudes."

"What I’m saying is that it’s not your fault. It never was."

"It’s not the same."

"Do you know what makes it better?"

I don’t answer. She’s leaning in close. The tips of her canines look sharp, and with her hair falling loose from her bun, she looks very much not like a regular substitute teacher. I see a glint of metal in her cleavage and I’m pretty sure she’s got a knife wedged in there. "Vengeance," she whispers.

Her words hit in the center of my chest and alight. I think of Paige shaking in my arms and I think of the root cellar as silent as a crypt. I remember my mom looking into my eyes and saying _different, but like the rest of you, still beautiful._ While she held me, I believed her, but then there were other stares, like this one. Kate and I are deadlocked eye to eye when the bell rings. I’m late for my next class. Kate shakes her head and leans back, picking up the pad of hall passes and signing one with a flourish. "Here you go."

I take the hall pass. I don’t miss how her fingers brush mine. Her pinkie nail clips the corner of the nail on my ring finger.

When I meet her eyes again, they’re as cold as my own, and yet she smiles. "Chin up, Hale. You’re letting all the pretty girls in the school down with that frown."

"Whatever."

"Oh, so you do know you’re eye candy. Good. It’s better that way."

"How are you not fired?"

"Oh, I only let my hair down with you, since you’re a polygraph with a tail."

Turning my face on her sly simper, I crumple the pass in my grip and head down the hall. If there is an extra stomp in my step, I just let it happen. If the center of my chest burns, I breathe it all in and let my eyes simmer beneath closed lids. I imagine what it would be like if they were blazing red. I imagine Ennis’s vertebrae cracking between my teeth. With my claws, I wipe the smarm off my uncle’s face.

.

.

.

.

This time there’s no music. The forest has melted and winter break is fast upon us. Sludge flies from the spin of my feet and the ball cracks a hole in the back of the goal. Belatedly, I hear the crunch of footsteps but assume by the weight and purposeful tread that it’s Cora.

Not Cora.

"Nice shot," Stiles calls. "Like, really nice shot. I’m pretty sure that somewhere in the world, Finstock just had an orgasm."

It’s funny but I don’t laugh. I’m too unnerved by his presence. I've been thinking about him. And after the last lacrosse practice, I thought he might try something. It’s _Stiles_ so he wouldn't have been able to stop himself—but he didn't try. Instead, I've been the one who’s been staring, watching, tracking his scent through the school. "What do you want?"

"Uh, Cora said you were out here, doing your thing or whatever."

"And?

"And I came to annoy you? My feet started moving. Then I was here before I could not be? I didn't dance so you can’t complain."

Now I’m thinking about his ass gyrating. His cheeks aren’t flushed like the last time, but the flick of his eyes is somewhat impish. I can tell, though, by the crunch of his stance that he’s nervous. And I don’t really want him to be nervous. I point at the ball down the ridge. "Pick that up."

He scoffs. "I’m not going to be your ball boy. That is not in the occupational journal of acceptable things for Stiles to do.

"You’re going to need a ball if you’re going to take a shot."

"Fine." Stiles goes and gets a ball. I hand him my lacrosse stick, and to our mutual surprise, he hits the net dead center. "I am amazing!"

"Do it again, and I’ll believe you."

He does not do it again. In fact, the shot goes so wide it hits the flaccid basketball. It falls out of the tree with a dull thud. Based on Stiles’s stance and grip, I’m not that surprised. "Best out of three?" he hedges.

"See that tape on the stick? That’s the twelve-inch mark. Put your left hand right on the edge. Yeah, like that. Also, your left arm needs to be out on the side of your body. Don’t pin it when you spin. You've got a good thrust, but you’re not getting the torque you could be if you were in the correct position."

"Like this?"

He’s actually listened to me. Everything is more or less in place, but now it’s like someone screwed a bolt too tight. "Relax."

Stiles frowns at me. I don’t have to ask why. (He’s remembering the last time I said that.) As I step behind him, I put my ankle next to his, pushing out slightly. I use one hand to grip his hip and the other to adjust his position on the stick. I hear his heart speed up. I know why. My own heart is matching the pace of his. I also know I should be stepping away. I shouldn't be out here alone with him. I almost like that I don’t care that I am. I want to know what he smells like. "Are we still practicing?" he asks.

"You’d be better at lacrosse if you kept your mind on the game."

"As opposed to what?"

"Worrying about Scott."

"That’s not why I’m distracted." He leans his head back so it’s resting against the top of my shoulder, like I’m his pillow, except then he turns his head so that his left eye is narrowed on me like a hawk’s. His nose is brushing my chin. His breathing is the soft chugging of a locomotive, and his body is all tense rails. It makes me think: we’re at the switch in the tracks.

I’m staring at his lips even as I ask, "Then why are you distracted?"

"That’s not how this works. You’re the perfect looking one. I’m the one who’s looking at you with a laundry list of my inadequacies. You’re not supposed to lure me into traps to further feed your ego."

"I wouldn't trap you. I wouldn't do that." Not on purpose.

"Okay, previous rule applies. And don’t you dare fuck with me and say you don’t know what I’m talking about because we both know."

"Like this." I twist his whole body with mine. The stick cuts the air in a perfect whoosh. My heart is tight in my chest. "One more time."

Stiles’s grip is unsteady and trembling as I swing us. This shot is not the last one. If we’d been using a ball, it would possibly have gone flying not forward but behind us. Or maybe that’s because Stiles is twisting in my hands. Maybe it’s because the stick is tossed into soggy grass. Maybe it’s because Stiles’s boots squish in the mud as he presses up to wrap his arms around my neck and breathe a long groan into the collar of my coat.

He is younger. He is smaller. He is Cora’s friend. I should be pushing him away. I don’t deserve him but I want him.

Yes, I want him.

Yes, I do.

I pull his chin up, and then just like that, he’s opening to me. His eyelashes are fluttering. He tastes of forest and grilled cheese. One second he’s there and the next second he’s breaking to the side. The fast spatter of kisses—all over my mouth, my chin, the tip of my nose—forces me to chase his lips. He’s laughing, no, giggling (there’s too much breathless, relieved, giddy joy to call it anything else) as I walk him back into a tree, and this time, there is no lesson. This time his leg loops around mine to get us closer. His neck is a canvas asking for blooms of color, and when I take my teeth to his collarbone, his exhale is smothered. His fingers, sticky and so eager, dig into the layers of my coat until they find my skin and fan scratches down the hills of my ass.

"How are you real?"

I’m not. "Shut up."

Stiles bites my ear before licking it. He drags his chin along my cheek. "Can we go back to your room?"

I shake my head. There’s Cora. There’s Laura. There’s my mom and dad. There could be flipping out and lectures. I’m so sick of it all. I like this private little thing. I like how happy he smells. Instead, I jack up our coats. I jam us together, and when I get the slot right, I kiss him, pressing him hard against the tree. I grind us together. I hike his left hip and the angle is better, and there are thirty seconds of frenzied back and forth before Stiles is a scream in my mouth as we rock and twigs and dead leaves rain down around us.

I take longer, but Stiles is melting whispers. His fingernails cut puzzle pieces into my back. When I feel my spine tighten, I bury my face in his neck to hide the glow in my eyes, and I don’t think about what it means that I never let the wolf so close with Paige, (less control now)(the scent of Stiles’s slick)(my eyes are blue) but there’s part of me that wants to protect him and part of me that wants to rip him apart, and I don’t know what that means.

I wash us off with icy water from the creek and Stiles shrieks until I offer to use my tongue. Then he’s nothing but bluster and blush, and he’s a boy—he’s male, but he’s beautiful. God, he is. I haven’t ever even looked at a boy this way, with so much intent and imagination, but now I’m worried I won’t stop.

My face must say as much because Stiles flicks his fingers at my stomach like it’s offending him.

"I want to see you naked."

I stare at him. Girls in my high school are not this forward.

"Come over tomorrow after lacrosse," he says.

"I don’t know if I should."

"We don’t have to… I mean, we could just hang out."

"I don’t know."

Instead of backing down, Stiles zips up his coat. He’s shivering and chewing on the inside of his cheek, but his heart beat is so steady. "Scott’s stupid with Allison. I already did my history essay. I’ve been playing too much Skyrim."

I turn away from him. "There’s no such thing as too much Skyrim."

Stiles grabs my hand and pulls me back. He’s biting his bottom lip in a way that is causing it to chap. "Just don’t say no."

.

.

.

.

Lacrosse practice is over, and Stiles is plastered to the bench beside my locker. I take my time getting dressed, on-and-off rolling my eyes at him because he’s being so obvious. Predictably, the moment we’re alone, his hand dips in his pants. He’s adjusting himself, and yes, I watch that. More so, he’s watching me watch him watch me, and how did I get here?

Stiles doesn’t even say a word when I pick up my bag. What he does is grab the strap and pull me out to the parking lot until we’re driving to his place. Then we’re upstairs in his room. I’ve never been here, but it stinks in a good way, like fallen leaves musty with autumn rot. I’m thumbing through the magazines on his desk when Stiles settles his hands on the back of my hips, fingers hooking under the hem of my shirt. "Can I?"

"Yeah." The shirt catches on my chin but then Stiles tugs hard. It’s sailing off. His eyes are huge, twin Saturns that are wide and ringed with swirls of reverberating light as he looks me up and down.

"Fuck," he says.

I sit back on his bed. Then he’s falling to his knees. His hands are on my shorts, and he’s fully clothed. There’s something about this that is unbalanced—because he is the beautiful one—he’s the one who is bright with untainted excitement.

"Can I?"

"Yeah."

My shorts are off, then my boxers. The room is cool. Stiles is pressing me back onto his bed. He is a much needed weight in my lap as he kisses bird tracks across my chest, licking when the fancy takes him. My hands are on his cheeks with my dick hard between his legs. When I can’t take it anymore, I snap a kiss against his neck. Then he’s gripping my biceps, hard like they’re metal instead of flesh. His fingers trace the wires of my surface blood vessels. There’s so much sweet awe that it maybe hurts. Maybe I want his mouth to close. But either way, I flip us, and I’m shelling off the layers of his clothes, and Stiles’s hands jerk to cover himself because he doesn’t _know_. He’s warm and shined with sweat from lacrosse practice and anticipation. His body looks like mine a year ago, when no amount of weight lifting would make a difference. His chest is bare except for the happy trail that descends into his boxers. I follow the line into the shadow of his pants. I want to put my nose there. My tongue. "Can I?" I ask.

"God, yes. Or no. Or Jesus, just like it."

"I like you." I should say: _I like the way you smell. I like the way you’re excited about everything. I like the way you give me my space until I cross into yours, and then you invade me mercilessly. Even when I think I shouldn't want you to. (I do.)_ But I don’t say any of that.

He’s nodding, and I’m shrugging down his shorts, and then there’s the circle of dark, Stiles-warm curls, and I bury my nose. Stiles is kicking at his boxers while simultaneously tangling his fingers above my ears like he might have to push me away because it’s too much. I’m not surprised when I meet his eyes and they’re all questions.

"I've never done this before," I explain.

"You don’t have to. Um, seriously. I’ll last two seconds."

"Try for three." I am worried about my teeth. I’m worried about my wolf. I’m worried about how much I want to. It’s too easy to butt his thighs wider. He is heavy and fragrant in my grip. The sour at the tip changes to musk as I glide my lips down. Stiles’s hips are bucking, and he is cursing, and yet I’m falling, sucking back up, and Stiles’s hands are fucking pulling my hair like we’re in a grade school tussle. His thumb is wiping across my brow. I can feel the way he’s crunched forward, abs shivering as he watches me.

There’s a kiss. Then he comes with his bottom teeth sharp against my hairline. My mouth is full. The taste is deeply animal. It takes a lot of control to keep my eyes dull and not glowing. When I finally look at him, he is gaping again. "You did not swallow."

I almost laugh. "I did not swallow." I wipe the smear off my lip.

Stiles make a noise that is more soprano than bass. That’s when I grab his hand, his long thin fingers, and slide them up my own dick. "This is what you want?" he asks. "Because I could…"

I jerk his fist.

His rhythm is good. I can tell when he’s using the technique he uses on himself and when he’s adjusting to try and accommodate me. It’s good. It’s relaxing. I’m relaxed. Until I’m not. Then I’m leaking through his fingers and we’re kissing with the sticky fist between us.

I’m lying there when he comes back with a wash cloth. He’s staring at me with wide eyes again. His gaze falls to my balls. "I want to look. Can I?"

"It’s nothing you haven’t seen before."

"Shut up. I have _you_ in my bed. I’m going to look." For the next five minutes, I am both wiped clean and exclaimed over. "You have no scars. And how are your balls handsome? Balls by definition are hairy potato sacks. Yours look like they got a snip and perm at the beauty parlor. Do you groom? Wait. I've decided you groom so don’t try and lie to me. My own rutabagas are feeling deeply insecure with their bald patches and scraggly comb-over’s. And how is it possible to have that many abdominal muscles while still in high school? It’s not fair. Do you know freaking Amy Wells has a picture of you from that swim party that she _sells_?"

It’s not only the tapping of his fingers but the constant prattle of his thoughts that keeps me drifting on clouds. I’m not even bothered when he crawls off me.

"Hey," Stiles says, "I have English crap that I’m ignoring. You want to play Skyrim?"

I finally leave when his dad gets home. And no, I don’t miss Stiles’s stammered goodbye or the way his dad’s brows climb to the ceiling.

.

.

.

.

Stiles is sitting next to me in the cafeteria. Scott is sitting cheek to cheek with Allison on the other side of the room. At the moment, Boyd doesn’t know how to handle this. It’s sort of like watching a hound dog confused over a kitten that won’t stop biting its ear.

"Boyd, how’s your sister?" Stiles asks. "I haven’t seen her since my mom, you know?" Boyd’s sister had cancer. She got better but is still high risk.

"She’s fine," Boyd answers. "Annoying."

"She’s so cute. She still call you ‘boy toy?’ Is she old enough to know what that means now? She’s like nine, right?"

Boyd’s eyes say _Derek, make him stop_. I’m about to make a joke when some dickhead—Winston, maybe? Waffleton? Starts to sing. "Hale and Stilinski sitting in a tree—K-I-S-"

When I steal his pudding cup and harpoon it at the guy, Boyd just sighs. Stiles watches the whole event with wide eyes. He doesn’t laugh like Boyd does when the cup hits his target. His eyes widen, though, when a fruit cup is thrown back in retaliation and I snatch it out of the air. I think about chucking it back, but I give it to Boyd, who gladly takes it. He likes fruit cups, too.

"Uh," Stiles says, "I think Lydia is coming over here." Lydia is coming over with her practiced, petite sashay. Her hair flips over her shoulder as she sits down on other side of me. She ignores Stiles.

"What, Lydia?" I ask.

"So, Mr. Smiles, winter formal is the weekend after next."

"That’s nice."

"So we’ll probably have to dance together."

"Or not."

Lydia laughs like we’re engaged in wordplay over cocktails, but seriously, it’s the night of the full moon. Also, I don’t like her. She’s vain, wearing so many masks she doesn’t even know what her true skin is. It doesn’t matter that I can relate. Lydia rolls her eyes and says, "It’s called the winter court. I crunched the numbers on the votes. Even allowing for a wide margin of error, it’s going to be you and me that are crowned. I know, it surprised me, too."

"If I were going."

"You’re going. I know you know how to two-step. I saw you at junior prom last year."

When I was with Paige.

I don’t know what look comes over my face, but suddenly Boyd is offering Lydia his fruit cup, and Lydia is actually taking it. When she’s finally gone, Stiles is shaking my tray. "Stop baring your teeth. It’s bad manners."

I don’t say anything.

I don’t even say anything when he mutters something under his breath and leaves.

Boyd asks, "What _the fuck_ are you doing, Hale?"

Well, and then I pick up my bag and I leave.

.

.

Kate Argent is wearing a skirt without underwear. On a normal person the skirt would be long but with her legs, it’s not that long. We’re currently covering The Glorious Revolution and the House of Orange. Kate is eating an orange carrot, apparently because carrots used to be all different colors (purple, yellow, etc.), but as a statement of loyalty, the Netherlands popularized the orange color in support of their house. The things she is doing to that carrot are making the whole room stink of teenage boy. Even I’m not unaffected. There’s the way the hunk of carrot bulges on the side of her mouth that makes me think of Stiles. It makes me look away.

When class is over, she stops by my desk. "Sorry. Bad laundry day."

"You know I can tell when you’re lying."

"How do you know my heart wasn’t stuttering for a different reason? I could have been thinking of my lunch. I’m only three classes in, and I’m already sick of root vegetables."

"Hunters do like fresh meat."

Kate laughs, and honestly, I like that she’s laughing. I shouldn’t enjoy these face-offs, but I do. She hates what I am but she doesn’t seem to mind who I am. Besides the fact that her conversation is as close to honesty as I get from someone not in my family. Still, I shouldn’t be as close to her as I am. I realize this the moment that Stiles walks into the room. "Hi, Miss Argent. _Derek_?"

Kate turns to Stiles with a swish of her skirt. The smell is intensely female, and I have to suck in a breath. "If it isn’t my _favorite_ student, the one who actually does his reading. Derek, did you know that Stiles is covering sub-Saharan myths? I lent him some books that he’s returning to me early, just like he promised."

This is when I see the books in Stiles’s hands. _Oral Traditions of the Desert Moon_ is next to _Mythology and the Slave Trade: Tales of Freedom_. God, he’s probably read the word "werewolf" over and over again. "Stiles is a good student," I say lamely.

"So you know each other?"

"He’s friends with Cora."

"I have to get to class. . ." Stiles says.

I’m not looking at him because I know that the look he’s giving me is . . .

Except my not-looking makes it worse. The moment Stiles is gone, Kate flips open one of the books. There’s a picture of a black-skinned tribe with glowing eyes and long claws. The white slavers run in terror. She shuts the book with a crack. "His dad is the sheriff, and he’s so clever. I had been thinking of training him up. He’s good friends with Allison, but then you found him first, didn’t you?"

"I said he’s friends with my sister. I have to go."

"Yes, go ahead. Just, let’s not pretend, okay, Derek?"

"Put on some fucking underwear."

Kate shrugs and crunches on a carrot. "I’m not the only one who likes fresh meat."

.

.

Stiles leaves lacrosse without waiting for me. I have to catch him in the parking lot.

"I didn’t think you’d follow," he says.

"Don’t be stupid."

Stiles looks at me like I don’t get it, but then he shakes his head, like he’s shaking off the world, like he’s shaking me off. Regardless, he follows me to the car.

.

.

We end up in a tangle of legs on his couch. Stiles kisses me with bites, with lazy spit. He scratches his hands down my ribs. The sensation sends me into overdrive. I have to take bath-tub sized gulps of air. My control is loose, barely reigned in. Stiles’s skin, his scent beckons. I have to yank the blinds down so we’re not exposed to the street.

When it’s over there is thin layer of white coating our stomachs. "Like mayonnaise," Stiles decides.

"With pickles."

Stiles laughs so hard I’m not sure what to do except kiss him silent.

.

.

.

.

At the next lacrosse practice, Danny Mahleani asks me to the winter formal. I’m so shocked that I don’t say anything. Normally, these things don’t surprise me. Normally, I sense them coming from a mile away. Normally I stop them at the first inch. Unless they’re Stiles.

"By the face you’re wearing I’m going to assume that’s a _no_." Danny’s smile is too composed.

"It’s not you. I’m not going to the dance."

"So you’re not into guys? Because I asked Cora. . ."

It’s at this moment that Stiles brushes past, knocking my elbow. He’s not looking at me as he smiles too wide at Danny. "Derek definitely plays both sides of the fence." And then he’s walking away.

Danny is wearing an expression that is a little too wise. "I didn’t know."

"I have to go." In fact, I take off at a dead sprint. I catch Stiles with his keys out, trying to get the keys in the lock.

He drops them when I rest my hand on his shoulder. "Leave me the fuck alone."

"I didn’t know he was going to do that."

Stiles shakes his keys in my face. "You are missing the point." He smells hurt.

I rub my eyes, and I don’t know what to do. At the very least, I don’t want to be in the center of the parking lot. "Can we get in the jeep?

Stiles looks like he wants to snap something scalding, but instead he unlocks the doors and we get inside. He’s not looking at me. I hate it. I hate the distance. I see the way his eyes are hopping among all the people in the parking lot like connect-the-dots. I don’t want to be here anymore, but I also don’t want to tell him to drive, so instead, I just lay my head down in his lap.

"What are you doing?" His voice is sharp.

"Hiding from the world."

"Because you don’t want them to see us."

"Because I don’t want anyone to see me—except you."

With an exhale, Stiles starts petting my hair. "It doesn’t work that way, you know. This is Beacon hell."

"Let me pretend."

Stiles continues petting my hair until the sun fades to a dull pink. When I glance up at the clock, it’s 4:38 p.m., and we’ve got minutes left of limited winter daylight. I’m leaning into his touch when he swears unintelligibly and starts the jeep up. "Once we hit the road, you better sit up straight. I’m not getting dragged into my dad’s office because some deputy on traffic patrol thought I was getting blown by my boyfriend."

I sit up off his lap even as I crank the lever on the seat so that I can lie all the way back. "I can wait until we get to your place to do that."

"Jesus, you’re an asshole." He’s smiling again.

.

.

.

.

I’m in my bedroom, door closed, and working on my calculus homework when Cora charges into my room.

"Go away," I snap.

I don’t have a chance to bat her away before her nose is buried in my neck. By the time I smack at her, she’s already dodged. From the narrowing of her eyes, she’s already figured it out. "So Danny was right. You and Stiles."

I focus on the equation on the paper. _Y = 3sinx - 4cosx_. It’s easy enough. Basic stuff. "It’s none of your business."

"Wrong, he’s my friend. You’re my screwed up brother. It’s not just my business, it’s my responsibility."

"Go away."

"He didn’t tell me. You know, Stiles normally tells me everything. He normally tells Scott everything. He hasn’t said a word about this."

"Scott has his head up his ass over Allison. You’re my nosy sister."

Cora is scrutinizing my face. She peers down at my homework as I write: _f'(x) = 4sin(x) + 3cos(x)_. "Just tell me that you really like him."

"None of your business."

"Then tell me that he’s not your rebound from Paige _because_ if you’re just screwing around with him—that’s not okay, Derek. There are lots of silly airheads who eye-hump you at school. Stiles is not one of them." She’s staring at me. She’s waiting.

"I would never do that to him." It’s my job to protect him.

Cora finally nods. "You should invite him over. It would make Mom happy. She likes him. Better yet, she likes to mother him since his own mom died. She can’t help herself."

"He’s over here often enough because of you."

"It won’t happen again. He isn’t Paige. He’s Stiles."

I know the difference. "Go away."

.

.

.

.

My parents’ holiday party is Friday and Stiles is there, and I kind of hate it, but my mom is smiling. She’s had too much wolfsbane cocktail and is cracking stupid jokes. "You need to eat more sausage," she says to Stiles.

"They’re delicious, but I’m so full." Stiles pats his stomach.

"I feel it’s my personal obligation to get as much protein in you as possible. You’re a growing boy."

"If I eat an ounce more, I might explode."

"Darling, I’m sure Derek wouldn’t mind a little protein in the face."

Stiles starts choking and my mom is laughing. I pointedly steer him away. "She’s only on the third drink. The dancing starts when she gets to the fourth."

"I like dancing."

"No one wants to see their mother undulate. No one."

"I like your mom, though maybe she’s a little too okay with this? My dad doesn’t even know."

"Sure about that?"

"Well, he sort of knows. He keeps asking why you don’t stay for dinner."

We’re in the foyer, right next to the coat closet and the smells of cloves and peppermint are thick in the small cove while from the kitchen, the aroma of chestnuts wafts from the broiler. Stiles is dark-eyed with moles like miniature chocolate chips, and god, he’s unfair.

"What?" Stiles asks.

"Just… _you_." I’ve just bent down for a kiss when the door swishes open.

The threat sends me in a tailspin.

My Uncle Peter is standing in the doorway. "And what have we here. Moved on already, Nephew?"

The noise that comes out of my throat is barely human. I’ve pushed Stiles behind my back and I’m holding his wrist too hard. I can’t even tell if my eyes are glowing. I taste blood along my gum line.

"Manners, Derek. That’s _Stiles_. X- _Y_ chromosomes these days. My, my. How we adapt, but little Stiles has grown up so nicely. Look at those cheekbones. _Hello_ , Stiles."

"Peter, you’re upsetting Derek." Stiles’s voice minutely calms me. Peter sees this.

"Leave," I growl at him.

"When will the day come that you aren’t so uptight?" Peter sighs.

"Then _we_ are leaving." I throw open the coat closet, and I’ve only just yanked out Stiles’s jacket when my mother is there.

"Peter." Her voice is ice.

"I just said Hi. Didn't I, Stiles?"

Stiles laughs nervously. "If you discount the incredibly awkward flirting."

"Kitchen, Peter, now," she orders. "You didn't tell me you were coming." She’s saying it as much to me as she is to Peter.

"Change of plans. _News_ ," Peter says conspicuously.

My mom stills. If I weren't so concerned with keeping Stiles away from Peter, I’d want to know the big deal was. "Derek, you’re not leaving. You can go up to your room if you want, but you’re not leaving. I’d prefer if you came and danced though. . ."

I march up to my room and Stiles follows. The minute he’s inside, I’m on him, tipping his jaw back, sliding my tongue in. There’s the faint trace of Peter’s scent filmed across his skin, just from the minute of standing in his presence. I hate it and I hate it and I hate it.

What’s insane is that Stiles lets me have it all. He collapses back on my bed. He spreads his legs. He says my name and runs his hands down the sides of my face as I crawl on top of him.

"Your family is down the hall. What if your mom knocks?"

"Come here. I just need you." I pull him against me, forcing myself to breathe normally again.

"Hasn't your uncle always been an asshole?"

"We should probably go," I say but I don’t move. I think about the glint in my uncle’s eyes. There’s no way my mother can watch him all the time. She didn’t ban him from the pack after Paige. Family first. Together we make up a single body. Even if one limb is gangrene. Even if the disease spreads to the other limbs. Even if family betrays you. I look at Stiles, and I think: _how can I protect you_?

Because I said I’d never be so stupid again. I said I’d never risk it, and yet, here I am holding Stiles and I don’t want to let him go.

I’m going to have to let him go.

.

.

.

.

.

I start avoiding him. After Monday’s lacrosse practice I make an excuse. I go home, and Peter is there, sitting in the living room like nothing has changed. He’s got a new girlfriend that Mom wants him to bring over. Apparently, she’s a beta from an Oregon pack. I can’t stand to listen to any more of it so I go up to my room. I pull my headphones on and I don’t even know what the song is—I’m not even listening—I just don’t want to hear any of them.

Peter pops open my door without knocking. "Where’s that sassy sixteen year old you’ve been molesting?"

"She’s in a grave, but you already forgot that, didn’t you?"

"You know it made me sad too. We wanted her to be in the family. Both of us. Me and _you_."

"Your grief is inspiring. Almost as much as your remorse."

"We are dangerous creatures. You shouldn’t forget that."

"I never do."

"Poor Stiles."

"Better poor than dead."

"God you need therapy."

.

.

.

.

On Tuesday I make up another excuse—calc test tomorrow morning.

"Okay." Stiles attempts a smile.

But it’s not okay. The stutter of his heart is clear on that.

.

.

.

.

On Wednesday, I’m in history and Waffleton or whatever his name won’t stop kicking the back of Sarah Elbert’s chair. I can’t freaking handle it so I lob an eraser at the back of his head.

Maybe too hard. He falls out of his chair.

"Derek, Machiavelli was last semester. Detention. And Warren, if you kick her chair again, you’re getting detention too."

.

.

Finstock reads my detention slip. "Miss Argent" wrote out my misconduct with excessive detail. "Next time keep it contained, Hale, and I know that kid is undersupplied on blood to the brain, but no need to make it worse. Next time, maybe try the throw underhanded, okay? Harder to see. . ."

Stiles tries to catch my eye, but I grab my bag and head for the hall. When I walk into the history classroom, Kate is wearing reading glasses. The top button of her blouse is unbuttoned. She has bare feet propped on a separate chair. The whole scene looks like the start of a teacher porno. The thing is, I know she knows this. "An hour. I’m not going to allow you to police the humans in my classroom. Next time get my attention."

"You saw what was happening."

"I was finishing my slide, and you need to reign in your temper." She’s good at not technically lying. Grabbing a pen off the desk, she rolls it between her fingers. The corner of her mouth turns up. "Take a seat front row. I think you and I are due for a talk." She swings her legs over the front of her desk and crosses her ankles. "So how’s your uncle being home?"

I wonder if Cora told Allison. I wonder how closely the Argents watch our movements. Then again, my uncle has been in town for at least three days. He tends to parade his presence. "How do you think?"

"Stiles has looked sad the past two days. I know what you’re doing. Even if I understand, it makes me sad. I told you I was sympathetic to young love."

Sympathetic enough to kill for it. "It’s not love."

"Oh, don’t be stupid. He’s mad about you. Or at least, don’t trivialize."

"It’s none of your business."

"At least be honest with him. You’d like to continue things with his kitten eyes, but the last time you tried a romantic relationship, your family arranged to have your girlfriend mauled."

"Yes, that will explain everything."

"I could help, if you’d let me. With a few insider tips, uncle Peter could be . . . _vamoose_." Her tone is so playful, so easy, and yet I know how dead serious she is. On a moment to moment basis, Kate doesn’t seem that bad. But then when you add the pieces together—they don’t fit. Not in a sane way. I should be more careful. The problem is, I don’t care enough. Kate talks to me like I’m an adult, like I’m her equal instead of her student.

"Why don’t you kill Ennis?"

Kate huffs and sticks the pen tip in her mouth. "Alphas with fully formed packs are problematic, especially since he only bit her once and it was an under-aged beta who finished the job. Code. Code. Blah. Wah. Messy."

"You don’t seem like the type of person who’d go for clean cut."

She outright laughs. "You are _so_ not what I expected."

"And what was that?"

"Boring with bad teeth." She shapes out fangs with her fingers.

"You’ve never seen me shift."

"Stop tempting me. You realize that I’m going to miss being your history teacher? Mrs. Nichols is back with you all in January. I’ll have to find something to do with my time. Maybe, I’ll find your Ennis. Maybe, when I’m finished, I’ll send you a picture."

The problem is, I like the image. "You just told me packs were hard."

Kate bends a knee. It sends her skirt rather high up on her thigh. I can see the black strap of her garter. "I’d find a way to get close. So close. Do you doubt me?"

"I don’t know." The garter strap is still there.

"You could help hunt if you wanted. It’d be unusual, but I think I’d enjoy your company."

"Stop talking like a Bond chick.

Kate laughs again. At least this time, her voice isn’t so faux sultry. "If I’m a Bond chick, where’s the trap?" She leans in close, but I lean away. Out the window, the lacrosse team crests the hill in a pack. I see Stiles, all knees, running next to Scott.

"You’re an Argent. The trap looks pretty obvious."

"God, you—how can you not see it?"

"See what?"

"You’re in love with him."

"No, I’m not."

"I don’t need to be a werewolf to hear that lie."

"Even if I were, it doesn't matter."

"It’s okay, I understand. You thought you were safe, locked in a cage of your own making. But now you've got Stiles trapped inside with you. You don’t know how to get him out still whole."

There is nothing I hate more than pity. It’s even worse when it’s the truth. "I think my detention is over."

"Break him gently."

.

.

I crawl in Stiles’s window after midnight. The squeak of the iron against glass rouses him.

"What—the?" he starts.

"It’s me. Shhhh."

Stiles blinks in the darkness for five long seconds. He’s only wearing boxers. His room is humid from the night’s rain. When I run my fingers across his brow, they come away damp. Gunk crowds the corners of his eyes, which are large and black from hours of night. I’m telling myself _make this quick_ when he wraps his arms around my waist. He says my name, and it’s just all ruined when he says, "I missed you."

I missed you too. Soon, I am going to miss you even more. I wedge my face between his neck and pillow. I don’t breathe. I’m trembling, and Stiles is pulling up on the pillow, digging out my face. Then he’s wiping at my cheeks and his heart beat picks up. He’s completely awake now.

"I’m not her. You know that, right?"

I can’t look at him. I need to speak. I need to say the words but he smells like dream-sleep and kept secrets. It makes my chest heave and it makes me think of Kate’s words, how the private little place that we created is what’s trapping him. There’s no way I can keep him there and also keep him safe. "I have to go—we can’t—" I can’t breathe. My heart is in my ears and my throat is choked with saliva. Every word is sore and thick.

"Calm down. Shhhhh." Stiles kisses my temple.

"We can’t see each—"

"Shhhh."

"We have to break up."

Stiles freezes. I hear a small gasp. "I need you to look at me."

I can’t look at him. I’m shaking my head. Drips are falling from the edge of my nose.

"Look at me."

I am such a coward.

"Fine."

I’m expecting him to shove me away but instead he shoves me down. His mouth is prying mine open. He tastes both too-sweet and rotten with fury. When his nail cuts into my cheek, I’m suddenly no longer afraid or upset because even if I deserve it (and I do deserve it) it’s not a guilt-thing. I like his anger. I like the bite of his rage on my tongue and the sharp kneeing on my thighs. I like it when his hard dick stomps upon my soft one.

It gets better when he bites down on my neck. Then I’m hard too.

"Get your jeans off," he says.

I take them off. Sheets are kicked to the side. He takes my dick in hand. He squeezes it at the same time he squeezes his own. We stare at each other and I think _you are beautiful_. I think, _at last,_ _you hate me_. I think, _take everything before I do._

"Flip over." I hear the click of a cap and then cold lube is smeared between cheeks. Stiles is on top of me. He’s grinding hard. His teeth are next to my ear. They snap, loud and clear. His cock jerks up the line of my ass.

"I would have let you fuck me, you know," he goads. "I wanted you to." His next whisper is through his teeth. "You know what else I wanted? I wanted for you to take me to that stupid dance." He jabs his thumb under my chin so that I look at him. "I wanted to make you happy. I wanted us to exist in the real world." His voice breaks. His hands squeeze my shoulders.

Finally gathering my voice, I reply, "But I’m not real."

Stiles flips me over. He’s still slick with lube but now his cock is grinding against mine. His teeth are a white gleam in the starlight. Our breathing is a hoarse and broken scale. He’s looking at me so intensely, like he’s trying to see past skin and membrane, like he’s trying to see into me. "Yes, you are."

He bites my lips. He claws his fingernails into my ass. He’s biting my neck like he wants to rip through the skin. I want him to—and I don’t. I look out the window, and over the roof top, the moon threatens _almost almost_. It’s then that I feel my control slip.

I’m trying to turn away without hurting him. I’m trying to keep my eyes squeezed shut and my mouth closed when he pulls me back to him, no matter that my fingers have shifted into claws. I’m expecting revulsion. I’m expecting some sort of shock. But Stiles shows no sign of surprise. "Shhh."

A growl barks out of my chest. I don’t know what I do except that I don’t want to hurt him but I need to get away.

"Shhhh." And then he’s kissing my eye lids. He’s rubbing his face against my fresh beard, and he’s nipping at my fanged mouth. I’m still gasping from shock when he picks up my hand and kisses my fingers just below the claws. He licks at the talons. "Shhh."

This time, he presses a much softer kiss to my lips. I open my eyes and I know that the blue is already fading. The blood from the change has left a soft tang in my mouth. I’m shaking but Stiles doesn’t stop with the kisses. He keeps kissing me, keeps canting our hips, keeps up with the soft _shhhs_ , and then I’m kissing him back. I’m rolling him over and pushing his hands over his head. I’m causing his mattress to creak. He comes with a soft cry and then I’m thrusting into his fist. Unlike the past times, the wolf is in perfect sync. I’m so completely in control that I meet his eyes when I come.

When it’s over and there’s nothing but stink and silence, Stiles says, "I meant it when I said I wasn’t her."

"When? When did you know?"

"I wasn’t sure until yesterday."

"Kate gave you the books."

"More like your balls were too perfect."

I want to scream. I want to tell him everything. It only makes it harder. "You need to forget."

Stiles shakes his head. "I was never good at pretending."

"You need to forget me."

"I love you, but it doesn’t make a difference does it?"

He grows more perfect by the second. The pain worsens. I kiss him goodbye.

.

.

.

.

I go through school the next day, and I am underwater.

If I breathe, it hurts.

He is right over there. I do not look. Not once.

His scent smokes in my nostrils.

"Stop it," Kate complains. "You’re making me want to volunteer for pet rescue."

.

.

When I get home, I’m half expecting for my whole family to be lying in wait, ready with an intervention. Cora will have reported.

In fact, in the living room, the family is all present and accounted for, but it’s not on my behalf. Peter is sitting on the couch. There’s a woman at his side, the beta from Oregon. She’s blonde with a razor jaw and lips so plump you expect to see an air nozzle. Her face is kind. I have no reason to hate her. It’s not her fault. I am sick with rage nevertheless.

"Derek, I thought you had practice?" My mom’s voice is overly formal. "This is Rebecca. She’s from the Oregon pack. She and Peter had an announcement for us.

"They’re pregnant and getting married," Cora butts in.

I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to feel. I want to do something horrible. I want to deny Peter this. He doesn’t deserve happiness. But Rebecca is staring at me with wide, overly emotional eyes, like _she’s heard so much about me_. God, she looks ready to burst with powdered sugar. It’s not her fault. It’s Peter’s.

I head right back out the front door.

I hear my name yelled. Behind me excuses are oiled and dripping.

Cora follows me.

"Jesus, Derek, what the fuck? Can’t you pack it in for a second? You have Stiles. Peter is finally acting like an adult. Move the fuck—"

"I don’t."

My whispered confession stops her. We’re standing at the end of the drive. The wind is back to freezing. I should have brought gloves or jerky. All the healing from the wind’s chapping makes me eat and eat. "What?" she asks.

"I don’t have anyone. I thought that Mom would keep Peter away—but now that’s not—I don’t even have a family who gives a shit. All I have is—" Nothing.

"What did you do?"

What I had to. "Leave me the fuck alone."

"Did you hurt him? I didn’t even see Stiles today, did you—?"

"I didn't want him to die too."

"God, you are such a fucking—" She lunges at me. I take the blow and then some. The dig of her claws and the fling of my blood barely even hurts. "Oh, fuck—you were supposed to—"

I was supposed to fight back. I was supposed to do what she wanted me to do. I was supposed to pretend and pretend and play along until the farce felt real. I wipe the blood off my face. When I wheel to face her, my eyes are bright and blue and murderous. She cowers before me like the tiny child she is.

"Now you’re just like Peter. You’re telling me what I’m supposed to do. How to live my life. I would listen to you, except that someday, when you’re 'grown up,' I’ll have to forgive you for being so stupid. For thinking you know best. Hear this, Cora. In fact, tell it to the whole pack: I’m sick of being told what to feel."

I turn into the night.

.

.

I’m thirty meters off 145 when the truck screeches to the stop. I’m ready to dash back into the forest except there’s a blinding flash to my left. A dart hits me pointblank in the shoulder. The stink of wolfsbane makes my stomach heave. I fall forward and the next thing I know my palms are stinging from stripped skin. My nose is pressed against moss.

I am rolling around, but I manage to get my phone out of my pocket. I swipe and aim for the call button. My vision is too blurry to see who I’m calling. The ringer is going off when another dart hits me in the back.

I hear a familiar female laugh. The white spots in my eyes cover everything.

.

.

Lips brush against my ear. A voice is whispering my name. Sawdust tickles my nostrils and cold metal is heavy on my wrists. When I open my eyes, I see enormous panels of canvas. A fake sword lies next to a witch’s pointy hat. I am stripped down to my boxers and manacled to a long metal board. When I look up there’s a cardboard blade poised over my head. It’s Stiles’s guillotine. I’m in the theater’s backstage. Kate Argent is standing across from me with a feather boa tossed over her shoulders and a leather tool belt strapped around her waist. I’m less surprised than I should be. "Now behave," she threatens, "or you’ll get a nasty shock."

"Shock?

To demonstrate, she presses two metal tongs together—and my body convulses as the muscles tighten so hard that they’re burning and my brain is white hot. When it’s over, I slump. My teeth feel loose from grinding. The metal on my wrists sears and burns.

"That’s DC current with the constriction. AC current is more of a buzzing, I’m told. Rather boring, actually."

"Boring?"

Kate leans in close. She blows a kiss. "I’d really hoped to do something far more fun, but you kept evading my traps."

"Fuck you.

"Oh trust me, darling, I wasn't opposed to the idea." Her eyes move up and down my body in a way that makes my empty stomach churn.

I glare back at her. "This is breaking the code."

"You probably haven’t missed the part where. . . I don’t care."

"They’ll know it was you."

"So today was a big day, you broke up with Stiles. God, his face. And then your uncle brought his girlfriend home with a puppy in the oven. Do you really think they’ll believe it was hunters that took you? I’m pretty sure they’re thinking you stormed off in a sulk."

I think about the phone call. I wonder if anyone picked up before I cut out. I’m trying to remember the last person I called. I haven’t called anyone in days. "If you’re going to kill me, kill me."

"Think bigger."

"Kill me twice."

"As I was saying, this was supposed to be more fun, but you wouldn't take the bait. You wouldn't let me kill your uncle. You wouldn't follow me home. I kept setting traps, but my little 007, you just keep sidestepping them. It was so annoying."

"Maybe you’re not a good Bond girl."

In response, Kate takes a cigarette out of a pack. She lights it with a smile and takes a long draw. Between the black boa and the metal tongs in her other hand, she looks like the grim reaper found a bride.

"Smoking in a public school, now you’ve really done it."

"Oh, Derek, you’ve got the wrong plot. I’ve been thwarted by the damsel, the darling with soft brown hair and enormous eyes. My wiles simply can’t compare to such raw, youthful beauty."

I realize what she’s saying. "Leave Stiles alone."

"Stiles is fine. He’s a human and I _like_ him. God, most high schoolers are dull little ingrates. Stiles, though, he’s got real intellectual curiosity. It’s a good thing you broke up with him. I needed to make sure he was out of your house tonight."

". . . out of my house."

"This has taken so much coordination. I wasn't actually planning on teaching through the end of the year, but you see, I had to prove myself as a hunter. That poor girl deserved retribution for what your family did to her."

"Retribution."

"We needed to wait for the right moment. Then we needed your clothes to cover the scent, can’t get close otherwise. Lastly, we needed you to have another one of your tiffs. I needed you back your old self, before Stiles, when you were miserable and temperamental."

"To do what?"

She takes another draw on her cigarette, before sucking in her cheeks, curling her tongue, and then puffing out a perfect smoke ring. She makes a sound like a sizzle. "Not a good way to go, but then again, _animals_."

For a second, I can only stare at her—I don’t believe her—but she’s smiling and I’m thinking about Cora and her laugh. I think about my mother and her unbreakable strength. I think about aunt Beatty’s nosiness and Dad’s and Laura’s bickering over politics.

The sound that emerges from my chest is an outright roar. I yank at my manacles, muscles bulging, wolf emerging, but with lazy easy, Kate crosses the tongs again, and whole my body seizes. When the tremors stop, drool hangs off my chin, and Kate wipes it with her fingers. The pain is too much for me to snap at her. She’s about to say more when her phone rings.

"I’ll be one moment." She’s walking away as she swipes and answers. "Daddy, why are you calling instead of texting? My little werewolf thermometer has yet to sprout red eyes and extra fur."

The voice on the other line is mostly growl. I recognize it though, it’s Allison’s grandfather. Gerard Argent, the one who blinded Deucalion. "The den was empty," he says.

Kate stills. "That’s not possible."

Gerard says something, another bit of code, something about coyotes and St. Bernard’s, but I’m utterly distracted by a new sound. Softly, so very softly, distant foot steps are creaking up the stairs to the effects booth. Then I hear the other sound. An iPhone has been left on.

♪: L _ove is great, love is fine. Out the box, out of line. The affliction of the feeling . . ._

I have never been so torn between relief and fear.

"Cut and run," Gerard hisses.

"Fuck." Without looking at me, Kate throws down her phone and heads for what is definitely a semi-automatic braced against a fake boulder.

♪: _Cause I may be bad, but I’m perfectly good at it._

Kate stops before picking up the gun. She’s wearing a pout. "I’m sorry, but sometimes, Doll, the bad girl wins."

♪: _Sticks and stones may break my bones . . ._

Kate has the gun raised when there’s a sudden cranking. Every single light in the room turns on, and the music blares at full volume through the audio system.

♪: _But chains and whips excite me_

Kate wheels around, gun blindly aimed at the sound booth over the audience seating. She fires off a round and glass shatters in a line. I’d be terrified except that the heart beat I know only accelerates for a blip before returning to its steady beat.

♪: _Na na na na._  
  
Another cranking. A string snaps and an enormous water wheel swoops right for Kate.

♪: _Come on, come on._

She shoots that too, but then loses her balance as she has to dodge for the side. Overhead, baskets overturn and scarlet petals flutter down in swirls.

♪: _Come on._

The next cranking sends a river scene down, creating a wall between me and Kate. I take the momentum and throw my weight to the side which succeeds in merely knocking the bench over.

♪: _I like it, like it._

The timing is perfect, because a trio of bullets pierce the canvas. The trajectory was aimed for my last position. The burn of wolfsbane stinks.

She fires again. This time she hits one of the speakers, and there’s an awful buzzing. There is more cranking. Gargoyles are dropping in peppered implosions.

In the distance, I hear a new sound. A howl. My pack.

The sound is invigorating. I take every ounce of my strength and push. I think of Stiles. I think of Paige. I think, _I have to live_. The metal starts to bend.

Kate also hears the howl. That’s when I hear the scramble of her steps. She rounds the edge of the canvas, and even when velvet curtains collapse over her like a cape, she isn’t stopped. Eyes glowing red and green and orange in the shifting theater lights, she raises the gun, even as my left hand breaks free of the iron clasp.

The out-of-tune song is cut off. There’s a loud squeak from the shifting of a microphone as Stiles says, "Every last bit of this has been recorded. If you hurt him, you won’t get away with it."

I wrench at the metal by my feet, if I can snap the whole bench . . .

"This is almost adorable." Kate fires the gun.

A bullet pierces my thigh. Another bounces off the metal bench. With my hand free, I push and I’m flying back. The third and fourth shots go wide. The whole bench finally snaps but I’m lying flat on my back, completely exposed to her.

The fifth shot, aimed for the upper right side of my chest, is met with an empty click.

The cartridge is empty. Kate and I both realize it at the same time.

"You should have run," Stiles says.

Staring into the stage lights, Kate merely sneers. Then she turns back to me with a cemented smile. "So we have to do this the dirty way." She scoops the metal tongs off the floor and connects them.

Everything burns. The whole room is collapsing in on my me, and I think I’m screaming. I taste blood and smell the char of my own skin.

Except then everything stops.

The lights are out. There is no sound. No more pain. There is only the sound of my breathing and . . .

Five other heartbeats. Kate’s is small like a rabbit’s.

"You hurt my son," Mom says.

Kate’s curdled scream is stage worthy.

.

.

My last bit of consciousness is the memory of Stiles snapping the string on the guillotine. As the aluminum hits my Adam apple, he crawls on top of me. He flutters a crimson petal against my nose and then he presses his lips oh so softy.

.

.

.

"Keep eating," Mom insists.

I have eaten an entire roast. I have had three bowls of chicken and ramp soup. A plate of bacon, liver, and onions. Three potatoes and however many carrots. The spot where the bullet hit is a pink mark that fades by the hour. I am fine. I say this. "I am fine."

My mother pets my brow. Her eyes flash red. "I’m reluctant to let you out of my sight, unless it’s to put my teeth into Gerard Argent’s throat."

"You should do that."

"You really want to go, don’t you?"

"Stiles wasn't here when I woke up, and I should thank him. If he hadn't been there . . ."

"You’re sure about your control?"

Overhead the moon is full. It’s only going to get fuller. I feel the pull, and yet, it’s not like before. There’s no separation of human and wolf. I just want to find Stiles. I need to find him.

She nods, smiling at me. "I guess I can tell you that Cora ironed your shirt and suit."

"Cora doesn't know how to iron."

"I adjusted the settings before she burned a hole in it. There are a few creases but she did her best. She felt bad about your fight."

"So I can go?"

"Here. Give him this." She presses a still-warm chestnut into my hands.

.

.

Enormous snowflakes hang from the ceiling. White and blue streamers decorate the backs of folding chairs. Girls are drinking diet coke from plastic martini cups, and the entire baseball team is trying to crowd the punch bowl as Michaels, the pitcher, dumps a flask of vodka in. At the front of the room, Finstock is on stage, making some sort of announcement. There is clapping.

On the other side of the gym, Stiles is next to Scott and Allison. Cora and Boyd and Erica are sitting at their table. Stiles is in a black shirt that actually fits. He’s rolling his eyes at whatever Finstock is saying. Lydia Martin is waving like a British royal.

I’m twenty feet away when I hear Finstock say _my_ name. Everyone turns to look at me. Suddenly Greenberg’s tequila breath is in my face with a hug and congratulations. It’s not just him. Sarah Elbert beams at me. That Warrington kid is pretending we’re friends. A few guys from the basketball team clap my back. Finstock is pointing at me from the stage while Harris has his arms crossed.

My instinct is to duck and hide, but I came here for a reason.

I dodge the drunk arms of Mary Williams, and then I’m crossing the room.

Stiles rounds the table. He looks . . . hesitant. We’re three feet apart when I hold out the chestnut. He is looking down at it, like he doesn’t know what to think, when Lydia Martin comes charging up. "Earth to Derek Hale. Glad you finally decided to show up. Do you not hear the music? Winter court king and queen. We’re supposed to be dancing."

"Nope. That is definitely not what I’m supposed to be doing right now." I have to step around her, but then Stiles’s hands slide into mine. His face is silver-flecked from the disco ball. His lips are crystal pink. His smile is this anxious, beautiful thing. Everyone in this school has no idea, but they will.

I love him. It’s not a secret.

I kiss him long and slow and deep and possibly forever.

 

　

 

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: public humiliation, canon-level violence, Derek is depressed at the start of this, kind of like he always is. There is a mini breakup because Derek has a freak out. Lydia and Jackson and Peter and Scott aren't exactly beloved by Derek in this. Also, Derek has a screwy mental battle with Kate Argent. There is zero bad touch but the woman is dirty as f--okay?
> 
> Also, there is shameless soundtracking. I couldn't stop myself. And I wasn't even drinking.


End file.
